Spanish retailer Mercadona raises all salaries by 2021 inflation rate

MADRID (Reuters) - Privately owned Mercadona supermarket chain, Spain's largest retailer by revenue, will raise the wages of all employees by 6.5% to match the country's annual inflation rate last year, it said on Friday.

Mercadona's move is in an effort to protect the purchasing power of its 93,000 employees, the company said in a news release.

The lowest wage at the supermarket chain in 2022 will be 1,425 euros ($1,614.95) a month, 87 euros more than in 2021, the company said, and 440 euros more than the country's legal minimum wage.

Spain's annual inflation rate rose to a three-decade high of 6.5% as a result of higher energy prices and supply chain disruptions feeding through to other consumer prices.

The head of Spain's central bank, Pablo Hernandez de Cos, has recently said that inflation would remain high in the early months of 2022 but would gradually fall in the second half of the year, provided higher costs of living do not translate into broad wage increases.

($1 = 0.8824 euros)

(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by David Goodman)