The Finance Ministry has confirmed that public sector wages will be frozen again in 2014, the fourth consecutive year that this has happened.
Prior to the freeze, the Zapatero government cut public sector wages by 5% and unions now claim that workers in the sector have lost 20% of their purchasing power.
The public sector workforce was also deprived of its Christmas bonus last year, but Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy believes that the economy has improved sufficiently for that not to be the case again.
The government intends to relax some of the restrictions on replacing civil servants who retire or leave the public payroll. Currently, a 10% replacement rate is in force, but only relates to members of the security forces and civil servants involved in the fight against tax fraud. This, however, will be extended to other areas of the public sector, such as health and education.