Wage increases agreed upon in newly concluded collective labor agreements fell below 4 percent in July for the third time this year. According to employers’ organization AWVN, it is too early to speak of a downward trend.
“The coming months will have to show whether that is the case,” says a spokesperson in an explanation of the preliminary figures for July. The fact is that the average wage agreements in April of this year were below 4 percent for the first time in 2.5 years.
That is a far cry from the peak in June 2023, when that percentage came out at 8 percent. Since then, the average wage increase has been steadily declining. “However, the monthly averages have remained at a level around 4 percent since last fall,” reports AWVN.
Now there seems to be an end to that tendency. The average agreed wage increase of 3.7 percent in July is also lower than that of the previous month. In June it was 3.9 percent. AWVN adds that the wage increase agreed upon last month applies to eleven collective labor agreements, covering 70,000 employees.
Even so, this counts towards the annual average for this year, which after six months comes out at 4 percent.