Employers have now submitted an offer in the third round of negotiations on a salary agreement for more than 430,000 commercial employees. Regardless of the salary level, a five percent increase and an additional one-off payment of 800 euros will be offered from 2024.
The “cost of living bonus” is tax-free, meaning employees receive more net income.
The union’s demand remains unchanged with an eleven percent salary increase. The employee representatives reject one-off payments. In a year of high inflation, this would be “a very bad deal, because a worker would lose tens of thousands of euros in his lifetime income,” said GPA union president Barbara Teiber.
With their starting salary offer, the employers see the union’s demand for an eleven percent salary increase fulfilled. In the higher salary categories (2,500 to 3,000 euros gross salary per month), the increase would be 8.79 percent or 8.16 percent from next year.
While prices have risen an average of 30.7 percent since 2016, wages have only risen an average of 24.7 percent, and 22.6 percent in retail, according to Jakob Sturn, an economist at the Momentum Institute.
“So that workers do not lose disposable income due to higher prices, the Momentum Institute recommends that wages at least be adjusted to reflect advancing inflation. To increase purchasing power, deals must be above inflation.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
