Press release No. 068 of 1 March 2017
WIESBADEN – The collectively agreed earnings, as measured by the index of agreed monthly earnings including extra payments, increased an average 2.0% in 2016 year on year. This confirms the provisional result released on 29 November 2016. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports that it was the smallest increase recorded since 2011 (+1.7%). Excluding extra payments, the agreed monthly earnings were 1.9% higher than the previous year's average. Gross monthly earnings actually paid were by 2.3% higher in 2016 than in the previous year (see press release no. 40 of 6 February 2017), according to provisional results. Consumer prices were up 0.5% over the same period. To compensate for price rises, the inflation rate is often used for orientation in collective bargaining. The low inflation rates of the last few years thus might have contributed to the moderate development of agreed earnings.
Basic data and long time series are available in tables Indices of agreed earnings, weekly working hours (6221-0001), (62221-0003) and Monthly index of agreed earnings and working hours (62231-0001) in the GENESIS-Online database.