Due to high inflation, Germany’s employees have less money in their pockets despite wage increases. Wages, including special payments, were 2.9 percent higher in the second quarter of 2022 than a year earlier, as calculated by the Federal Statistical Office.
However, because consumer prices rose by 7.6 percent during this period, the bottom line, according to the Wiesbaden authorities on Monday, was a drop in real wages. The statisticians put the price-adjusted drop in earnings at 4.4 percent. In the first quarter of the current year, real wages fell by 1.8 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Now the high rate of inflation has once again more than eaten up the increase in nominal wages. Even in the years 2020 and 2021, which were shaped by the corona pandemic, employees had to accept real wage losses after many years of upswing.
In the current year, inflation has remained stubbornly above the seven percent mark for months, even if there has recently been some relaxation thanks to government relief. However, inflation in Germany could rise again in autumn. From September 1st, for example, the tank discount will no longer apply and the nine-euro ticket will also expire.
An internal note from the Federal Ministry of Economics shows that German gas storage facilities are currently filling up faster than planned. Less gas from Russia, but more from Norway and the Netherlands and soon from France. On Friday the fill level was 82.2 percent.
After the debate about salaries at ARD, the focus is now on Deutschlandfunk, also a public broadcaster and GEZ-financed. An internal listing shows: Here, too, the bosses collect properly.
By 2035, the number of employable people will fall by three million. “We are heading for a dramatic situation,” say scientists.
