The Corona crisis is also leaving its mark on the real wages of employees in Germany.
For the second year in a row, wage increases failed to offset price increases for goods and services in 2021.
The Federal Statistical Office provisionally estimated the decline in real wages at 0.1 percent on Wednesday.
Although gross monthly earnings, including special payments, grew by almost 3.1 percent last year, they were more than completely eaten up by the 3.1 percent increase in consumer prices.
In the Corona year 2020, nominal wages fell by 0.7 percent nationwide, also because of the reduced working hours during the pandemic.
With inflation at 0.5 percent, real wages fell by 1.1 percent after many years of upswing.
Previously, there had been a slight drop in real wages of 0.1 percent in 2013.
The increase in gross wages in 2021 is characterized by the special effect that many employees have ended their short-time work.
As a result, gross wages, which do not include short-time work benefits, rose disproportionately in the statistics.
This catch-up effect was particularly large in sectors that had been hit hard by the Corona cuts in 2020.