They are also a majority (58%) to expect an increase in their selling prices this year, according to a quarterly barometer by Bpifrance and the Rexecode institute.
Half of the managers of very small businesses (TPE) and SMEs plan to increase the salaries of their employees in 2022, according to a quarterly barometer published on Wednesday by the public bank Bpifrance and the Rexecode institute.
Read alsoSalaries: why the grids of certain branches start below the minimum wage
While recruitment difficulties are the first obstacle to the activity of SMEs, these salary increases are three-quarters motivated by the desire to retain employees, according to the results of the survey conducted from January 31 to February 9. with more than 600 SMEs and VSEs in the non-agricultural market sectors. Of the half of those companies planning to raise wages this year, 63% believe the increase will be higher than the average for the three years before the Covid-19 crisis, and 33% of the same magnitude. Of the other half, who won’t raise salaries, 57% say they have insufficient results to do so, but 48% say they want to “favor the granting of remuneration ancillary to the salary” such as bonuses, profit-sharing or participation.
Sales price increases in 2022
On the other hand, a majority (58%) of managers of SMEs and VSEs “plan to increase their selling prices in 2022”, still according to the barometer which specifies that among them, 88% envisage a rise in their prices higher than that of the last three years before the crisis. For SMEs, which represent 30% of employment in the market sector in France (excluding agriculture and finance), “today we have a little more price increases than wages, which shows that there is not yet an automatic adjustment” wages on prices that could lead to an inflationary spiral feared by some economists, explained to AFP Baptiste Thornary, head of economic studies at Bpifrance. According to the survey, anticipated price increases are thus an average of 3.8%, while expected wage increases average only 2.2%.
Degradation of their margins
Nevertheless, 34% of SME/VSE managers anticipate a deterioration in their margin this year, but for three-quarters of them, this will be “slight degradation”, reports Baptiste Thornary. This deterioration underlies a rise in non-wage costs greater than the rise in selling prices for SMEs, whose cash position remains comfortable but “has deteriorated in recent months”according to the survey.
Finally, the investment “would remain dynamic in 2022”, with 59% of SME/VSE managers planning to invest, compared to only 55% a year ago.