After a year and a half of inflation, wages continue to chase after the rise in prices, even if the gap is narrowing, indicates a study by the Department of Studies and Statistics of the Ministry of Labor (Dares), Friday, June 16.
In the first quarter, the basic monthly salary (gross, excluding bonuses or overtime) of all French people increased by 1.9%, or +4.7% over one year. The basic hourly wage of workers and employees alone increased by the same amount in the first quarter (+ 1.9%), but more over one year (+ 5.2%).
“ These developments must be set against inflation: consumer prices (for all households and excluding tobacco) increased by 5.7% between the end of March 2022 and the end of March 2023specifies the Dares. Over one year and in constant euros, the basic hourly wage of workers and employees therefore fell by 0.5% and the basic monthly wage of all French people by 1%. »
If the lowest wages have grown more than the others, it is because they have been driven by the automatic revaluation of the minimum wage, the minimum wage being the only one to be indexed to the consumer price index. In a normal year, it experiences only one revision, on the 1er January. But he has had six since October 2021, including four for a year.
“Lag induced by the time of the negotiation”
“We still lack the perspective to judge the fundamental evolution, but what appears is that there has not been so far in France a price-wage inflationary loop, as some feared, in the memory of what had happened in the 70s, emphasizes Héloïse Petit, economist at the Center for Employment and Labor Studies at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.
The 11% increase in wages by 2024 obtained at the end of April by German civil servants after their threat of an indefinite strike did not fail to arouse concerns about a surge in wages in Europe – the European Central Bank seeing it, during its press conference on Thursday June 15, a an increasingly important source of inflation.
The Dares figures show, however, that at the start of 2023, the increases remained moderate in France. “As inflation will decelerate in the coming months, we can expect to see wages approaching the level of inflation, or even exceeding it momentarily due to the time lag induced by the negotiation, says Héloïse Petit. But we should not forget the cumulative lag taken by wages over prices for a year and a half. »
You have 45.73% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.