Friday December 31, 2021
Survey among companies
Ifo sees “strong” wage increases in 2022
According to a survey, employers expect wages to rise in the coming year. The salaries in the service sector are expected to increase particularly strongly. In addition, the majority of companies are planning to increase jobs rather than cut staff.
According to a company survey by the Ifo Institute, employees in Germany can expect significant wage increases in the new year. On the one hand, the companies were looking for skilled workers, on the other hand, the minimum wages rose sharply, explained the economic researchers. Of the 630 personnel managers questioned, 78 percent assume “that overall wages in their workforce will rise by an average of 4.7 percent”. Falling wages are only reported very sporadically.
“In the service sector, the wage increase is likely to be the highest with an average of 5.8 percent,” says the study. Trade and service companies expected “that wage increases for unskilled workers will be higher than for skilled workers”.
One explanation for this could be the substantial increases in the minimum wage: from the previous EUR 9.60, the minimum wage will rise on January 1 to EUR 9.82 and on July 1 by a further 6.4 percent to EUR 10.45. And according to the coalition agreement, the new federal government wants to raise the minimum wage again to EUR 12.00 in 2022. According to a survey of personnel managers among service providers, an average (median) of 20 percent of employees would benefit from this, 10 percent in retail and 7 percent in industry.
On the other hand, a good 80 percent of the HR managers surveyed are looking for skilled workers. Almost everyone would have problems with this: “The difficulties in finding skilled workers will likely worsen compared to last year,” wrote the economic researchers. 40 percent of the companies planned to increase their workforce, only 12 percent to downsize. “The HR managers surveyed see increasing the attractiveness of vocational training as the most suitable measure to combat the shortage of skilled workers.”