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Wiesbaden (dpa) - Wage restraint in the Corona crisis has slowed the rise in collective wages this year.
According to preliminary calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, the salaries of collective bargaining employees, including special payments, were 2.1 percent higher on average in 2020 than in 2019. This would be the lowest increase since 2016, as the Wiesbaden authority announced on Monday.
In the past year, the fees rose by an average of 3.2 percent.
Positive from the point of view of the employees: Collective wages increased significantly more than consumer prices as a whole, which according to economists rose by around 0.6 percent this year.
The bottom line is that the affected employees have mathematically more money in their pockets.
However, the use of short-time working in the pandemic was not taken into account in the data.
According to the information, changes in the actually paid working hours are not included in the tariff index.
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According to recently published data from the WSI tariff archive of the trade union Hans Böckler Foundation, the corona crisis put pressure on the new deals in particular this year.
With an annual wage increase of 1.5 percent, they were significantly lower than the increases already agreed for 2020. These had brought employees a plus of 2.6 percent.
Under the pressure of the crisis, for example, employers and the metal and electrical industry union agreed not to raise wages any further this year.
In return, additional days off for employees with young children and compensation payments for short-time work were agreed.
According to calculations by the WSI, the salaries of collective bargaining employees rose by an average of only 2.0 percent this year.
The last time there was lower growth was in 2010 as a result of the global financial and economic crisis that had just been overcome at the time.
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"In times of the corona pandemic, collective bargaining policy is making an important contribution to stabilizing wage incomes, which has a positive effect on overall economic development," said Thorsten Schulten, the head of the WSI collective bargaining archive.
The German collective bargaining system works even under crisis conditions and is able to obtain suitable deals.
According to the WSI, a total of almost 18.6 million employees will receive wage increases in 2020.
There were new contracts for around 9.8 million in 2020.
In its calculations, the Wiesbaden authority took into account basic remuneration as well as special payments stipulated in collective agreements such as one-off payments, annual special payments or additional payments under the collective agreement.
The special payments include, for example, the Christmas bonus.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201221-99-771396 / 2
Collective earnings 2020
WSI on collective wages 2020