Rising inflation and wage indexations: impact on labour costs
The high energy prices have triggered the wage indexation mechanism. Every employer is obligated to carry out such indexations, which can entail many additional costs.
As an employer, you can try to take future indexations into account when budgeting conventional wage increases (read: wage increases at company level for individual employees).
In the private sector, wage indexation is regulated by sector in collective labour agreements and there are generally two main systems:
There are the sectors in which wages are indexed at a fixed point in the year with a percentage unknown in advance and there are the sectors in which wages are indexed with a fixed percentage (usually 2%) at a variable point in the year.
For some of the sectors that index at a fixed point in the year, the forecasts are as follows:
- In the metal sector (JC 111 and 209) there will be an indexation on 01/07/2022. An indexation of 6.57% is expected;
- In the construction sector (JC 124) wages are indexed every three months. On 01/04/2022 wages rose by just under 3%;
- In the supplementary Joint Committee for the white-collar workers (JC 200) wages were indexed by 3.58% on 01/01/2022. For 2023 an indexation of 4.90% is expected.
Forewarned is forearmed…
In these times of price increases, it is no unnecessary luxury to take a close look at your entire wage policy. Of course, you can count on our assistance.