In 2023, wages rose quite significantly and this trend could continue in 2024. In any case, this is what a study by Deloitte concludes.
Inflation is hitting many European countries hard, and France is no exception. It is even one of the countries where this is the strongest with many impacts on the French. This excessive increase in payment instruments brings in its wake an increase in wages, itself catalyzed by a shortage of labor at the national level. The survey recently carried out by Deloitte thus reveals that these levels of salary increases are reaching levels this year that have never been seen before. In 2024, even if this dynamic will continue, it will be slightly reduced.
The year 2023 and the salary increase
Even if all the people concerned do not necessarily feel it on a daily basis, it turns out that French companies have considerably inflated their budgets allocated to salary increases. The categories of workers where this trend is the most remarkable are manual workers, technicians and supervisors (OETAM). They saw their income increase by 4.6% compared to the previous year. People receiving the SMIC could also see their salary increase slightly, since the minimum income is indexed to inflation. On the executive side, the increase is also notable, although more moderate since it reaches 4%.
The outlook for 2024 points to a “positive” future, as forecasts seem to follow this trend, although the rise will be lower than this year. For the OETAMs, their salary should thus increase by 4%. Executives will benefit from a 3.5% increase. Even though inflation slowed slightly at the start of 2023, it picked up again from August with a surge of +1% compared to the previous month.
Factors that support this trend
Even though the mad dash of inflation has calmed down slightly, it remains very high and above average inflation in the euro zone, which stabilized at 5.3% in August. In France, it is now 5.7%. This rather critical situation forces companies to maintain their compensation budgets at high levels to stem the rise in prices that their employees have to face.
A second factor is important to consider: that of the labor shortage. Some sectors are more affected than others: hospital service agents, nurses, and even in cybersecurity. Even if the situation is less worrying than the post-COVID period, the tension is still quite high. Consequence: in some cases, employers are ready to increase salaries to make job offers more attractive, as in the United States in tech for example or even, more surprisingly, in the field of cybercrime.
Wages will continue to rise, the news is rather good to hear. Even if this prospect is promising for many workers, the most reassuring thing would still be to see consumer prices drop and then come back down to acceptable rates. For the moment, we are very far from the mark.
Source : The echoes
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