“Services is a bit like the liner of the price index: it is the sector that weighs the heaviest and is the least volatile. This is where prices go up last, but also where they go down last,” explains Olivier Garnier, chief economist at the Banque de France. And this liner, economists have been observing it for a few months with binoculars, for fear that it will accelerate, taking over from energy and then from food as the locomotive of inflation.
For the time being, if the inflationary tide has not subsided – price rises in France jumped in August, rising from 4.3% to 4.8% due to the increase in electricity tariffs and the rise in oil prices – the “liner” of services, which includes activities as varied as transport, building renovation, health or hairdressing salons, is holding up. Prices in this sector, which represents half of the index, compared to 9% for energy and 16% for food, have increased by 2.9% over the last twelve months, a slight decline compared to the spring. “There is currently no excitement on this side », confirms Julien Pouget, head of the business cycle department at INSEE.
If the services are under increased surveillance, it is because they are very sensitive to the rise in wages, which has accelerated in recent months in France as elsewhere. “In this sector, wages represent the largest part of the costs, unlike manufactured goods, for example, which also depend on the price of raw materials, explains Sylvain Bersinger, Chief Economist at Asterès. Inflation in services is first and foremost wage growth: however, this is in the process of exceeding the rate of the rise in prices. » According to data published on 28 August by Dares, the statistical service of the Ministry of Labor, for the first time since 2021, wages increased in the second quarter of 2023 faster than prices (+ 4.6% over one year, against + 4.4% for inflation excluding tobacco).
Salaries at “unprecedented levels in 2023”
The Deloitte firm, in a study published Thursday, August 31, even indicates that salary increases have reached “unprecedented levels in 2023” in France, 4.6% for workers, employees, technicians, supervisors, and 4% for executives. The most modest categories have benefited in particular from the indexing of the minimum wage to inflation. The whole question is to know at what rate will increase remuneration in the coming months, and whether business leaders will fully pass on these increases in their prices.
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