Jan 04, 2024 at 00:00
The prices of goods and services rose faster than wages in the past year. On average we lost 2.1 percent, reports statistics agency CBS. And this despite the fact that wage increases were the largest in more than forty years.
Collectively agreed wages increased by an average of 6.1 percent in 2023. About three quarters of salaried workers are covered by a collective labor agreement. Civil servants, truck drivers, hairdressers and parcel deliverers, among others, received a significant increase.
Still, it was not enough to offset inflation. There was already significant inflation in 2022, and it continued in the past year. For example, the prices of clothing, groceries and tobacco rose sharply. Statistics Netherlands calculated that wages lagged behind price increases by an average of 2.1 percent last year.
This was mainly due to the first three quarters, in which wages increased less than average prices. This was probably not the case in the last quarter. This is not yet completely certain, because the December inflation figure is not yet available.
That is why we only looked at inflation in October and November for the fourth quarter. On this basis, Statistics Netherlands comes to the conclusion that the real wage – taking inflation into account – increased by 2.9 percent in the last months of the past year.
2023 was the second year in a row in which wages rose less quickly than prices. In 2022 we even declined by about 6 percent. Never before has the difference between wages and inflation been as large as two years ago.
Beeld: Getty Images
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2024-01-03 23:00:57
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