New data release: ECB wage tracker continues to indicate that negotiated wage pressures will ease
12 March 2025ECB wage tracker, updated with agreements signed up to 19
February 2025, broadly unrevised compared to data release following
January Governing Council meetingForward-looking information continues
to suggest that negotiated wage pressures will ease overall in
2025Forward-looking information from the wage tracker should not be
interpreted as a forecast
The European Central Bank (ECB) wage
tracker, which only covers active collective bargaining agreements,
indicates negotiated wage growth with smoothed one-off payments of 4.
7% in 2024 (based on an average coverage of 48. 2% of employees in
participating countries) and 3. 3% in 2025 (based on an average
coverage of 40. 5%). The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off
payments indicates average negotiated wage growth of 4. 8% in 2024 and
2. 8% in 2025. The steeply downward trend of the forward-looking wage
tracker in 2025 partly reflects the mechanical impact of large one-off
payments (that were paid in 2024, but drop out in 2025) and the front-
loaded nature of wage increases in some sectors in 2024. The wage
tracker excluding one-off payments indicates negotiated wage growth of
4. 1% in 2024 and 3. 9% in 2025. See Chart 1 and Table 1 for further
details.
The ECB wage tracker may be subject to revisions, and
the forward-looking part should not be interpreted as a forecast as it
only captures information in a more limited share of active collective
bargaining agreements. As new agreements are made throughout the year,
the growth rates indicated by the wage tracker are subject to change.
For a more comprehensive assessment of wage developments in
the euro area, please refer to the March 2025 macroeconomic projection
exercise, which indicates a yearly growth rate of compensation per
employee in the euro area of 4. 6% in 2024 and 3. 4% in 2025, with a
quarterly profile in 2025 of 3. 8% in the first quarter, 3. 7% in the
second quarter, 3. 4% in the third quarter and 2. 8% in the fourth
quarter.
The ECB publishes four wage tracker indicators for
the aggregate of seven participating euro area countries on the ECB
Data Portal. Chart 1ECB wage tracker: forward-looking signals for
negotiated wages and revisions to previous data
release2023-25Revisions to previous data release(Left-hand scale:
yearly growth rates, in percentages; right-hand scale: percentage
share of employees)(percentage points)Sources: ECB calculations based
on data provided by the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Greece, the
Banco de España, the Banque de France, the Banca d’Italia, the
Oesterreichische Nationalbank, the Dutch employers’ association AWVN
and Eurostat. Indicator of negotiated wage growth calculated using
data from the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Spanish Ministry of Labour and
Social Economy, the Banque de France, the Italian National Institute
of Statistics (ISTAT), Statistics Netherlands, Statistics Austria and
Haver Analytics. What do the four different indicators show?The
headline ECB wage tracker is a tracker of negotiated wage growth that
includes collectively agreed one-off payments, such as those related
to inflation compensation, bonuses or back-dated pay, which are
smoothed over 12 months. The ECB wage tracker excluding one-off
payments reflects the extent of structural (or permanent) negotiated
wage increases. The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments
is constructed using a methodology that, both in terms of data sources
and statistical methodology, is conceptually similar to, but not
necessarily the same as, the one used for the ECB indicator of
negotiated wage growth. The share of employees covered is the
percentage of employees across the participating countries that are
directly covered by ECB wage tracker data. This indicator provides
information on the representativeness of the underlying (negotiated)
wage growth signals obtained from the set of wage tracker indicators
for the aggregate of the participating countries. Employee coverage
differs across countries and within each country over time (more
details provided in Table 2). Table 1ECB wage tracker: summary
details. (ECB wage tracker indicators reflect yearly growth in
negotiated wages, in percentages; coverage is defined as the share of
employees in participating countries, in percentages)
ECB wage
tracker
Coverage
Headline indicator
excluding
one-off payments
with unsmoothed one-off payments
Share
of employees (%)
2013-2023
2. 0
1. 9
2.
0
49. 1
2024
4. 7
4. 1
4.
8
48. 2
2025
3. 3
3. 9
2.
8
40. 5
2024 Q1
4. 1
3. 7
5.
1
48. 7
2024 Q2
4. 4
3. 8
3.
4
48. 6
2024 Q3
5. 0
4. 4
6.
5
48. 1
2024 Q4
5. 3
4. 7
4.
2
47. 5
Jan-25
4. 8
4. 3
2.
9
47. 2
Feb-25
4. 9
4. 7
3.
2
47. 1
Mar-25
4. 7
4. 6
1.
7
43. 9
Apr-25
4. 7
4. 7
4.
4
43. 3
May-25
4. 4
4. 4
4.
1
43. 1
Jun-25
4. 2
4. 2
3.
9
40. 7
2025 Q3
2. 2
3. 5
1.
7
38. 2
2025 Q4
1. 5
3. 0
2.
9
35. 5Sources: ECB calculations based on data provided by the
Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Greece, the Banco de España, the
Banque de France, the Banca d’Italia, the Oesterreichische
Nationalbank, AWVN and Eurostat. Notes: See the technical details at
the end of this press release. Rows with values in italics and bold
refer to the forward-looking aspect of the respective indicators.
Table 2Employee coverage by country(share of employees in each
country, in %)
Germany
Greece
Spain
Franc
e
Italy
Netherlands
Austria
Euro
area
2013-2023
42. 0
10. 0
51.
7
51. 6
48. 7
64. 1
57. 8
49.
1
2024 Q1
44. 2
15. 9
47. 8
47.
7
48. 3
62. 6
78. 6
48. 7
2024
Q2
44. 6
15. 9
47. 8
47. 7
48.
1
62. 3
77. 8
48. 6
2024 Q3
44.
7
15. 8
47. 7
47. 6
47. 9
60.
7
77. 7
48. 1
2024 Q4
44. 1
15.
9
47. 8
47. 7
47. 9
58. 1
77.
5
47. 5
2025 Q1
42. 2
18. 0
46.
8
46. 0
44. 7
57. 1
75. 5
46.
1
2025 Q2
38. 5
13. 1
46. 1
36.
1
34. 9
54. 8
69. 4
42. 4
2025
Q3
37. 0
5. 5
39. 9
28. 2
27.
3
49. 4
67. 3
38. 2
2025 Q4
35.
1
5. 1
34. 6
23. 6
26. 8
39.
5
62. 3
35. 5Sources: ECB, Deutsche Bundesbank, Bank of
Greece, Banco de España, Banque de France, Banca d’Italia,
Oesterreichische Nationalbank, AWVN and Eurostat.
Notes: The
euro area aggregate comprises the seven participating wage tracker
countries. The coverage shows the relative strength of wage signals
for each country and the euro area. The historical average is
calculated from January 2016 to December 2023 for Greece and from
February 2020 to December 2023 for Austria. For the other countries,
it is calculated from January 2013 to December 2023. Rows with values
in italics and bold refer to the forward-looking components.
For media queries, please contact Nicos Keranis, tel. : +49
172 7587237. Notes:The ECB wage tracker is the result of a Eurosystem
partnership currently comprising the European Central Bank and seven
euro area national central banks: the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of
Greece, the Banco de España, the Banque de France, the Banca d’Italia,
De Nederlandsche Bank and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. It is
based on a highly granular database of active collective bargaining
agreements for Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands
and Austria. The wage tracker should be considered as only one of many
possible sources that can help to assess wage pressures in the euro
area. These are not wage growth forecasts, as they only indicate wage
pressures that mechanically arise from the collective bargaining
agreements already in place. The Eurosystem and ECB staff
macroeconomic projections remain the most comprehensive assessment of
the wage outlook for the euro area. The wage tracker methodology uses
a double aggregation approach. First, it aggregates the highly
granular information on collective bargaining agreements and
constructs the wage tracker indicators at the country-level using
information on the employee coverage for each country. Second, it uses
this information to construct the aggregate for the euro area using
time-varying weights based on total compensation of employees in the
participating countries. Given the forward-looking nature of the
tracker, which is dependent on the underlying collective bargaining
agreements database, the wage signals should always be considered as
dependent on the information available at any given point in time and
are thus subject to revision. The results in this press release do not
represent the views of the ECB’s decision-making bodies.