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The earnings of employees with a collective bargaining agreement rose in the third quarter - but they are far from compensating for the high inflation.
Including firmly agreed special payments, collective wages rose by an average of 0.9 percent compared to the previous quarter, as the Federal Statistical Office has calculated.
"This is the smallest increase since the time series began in 2010," it said.
Since consumer prices rose by 3.9 percent in the summer months at the same time, the purchasing power of employees shrank.
Standardized basic remuneration and special payments determined by collective bargaining agreements, such as one-off, annual special or additional payments based on collective agreements, are taken into account.
As a result of a special effect, collective wages in the manufacturing sector even fell by 0.9 percent in the third quarter: In the metal and electrical industry, a lump sum payment was made a year earlier, which this time is only planned for the current fourth quarter.
Without this effect, collective wages in manufacturing would have grown by 0.6 percent.
In some sectors also higher growth
There were also below-average tariff increases in the area of »Trade;
Maintenance and repair of motor vehicles «with 0.5 percent.
There was also a meager increase of 0.8 percent in the field of “professional, scientific and technical services”.
The comparatively small increases in earnings are due to subdued collective bargaining agreements under the impression of the corona pandemic.
Further losses, for example due to short-time work, are not included in the evaluation of the collective wages.
Before the pandemic, workers had mostly received wage increases above inflation, thereby increasing their real income.
Collective wages in other economic services grew at an above-average rate of 2.9 percent in the third quarter.
"Here, in addition to regular wage increases, the adjustment of wages in the east to those in the west in the area of temporary employment was particularly noticeable," it said.
There was also noticeable growth in the construction industry (+2.1 percent) and in energy supply (+2.0 percent).
Central bankers, economists and financial markets are currently looking closely at the development of wages.
They are looking for clues as to whether a spiral of sharply rising consumer prices and wages is starting that could solidify the current high inflation.
In November, goods and services in Germany were 5.2 percent more expensive than in the same month last year.
This is the highest rate of inflation in almost 30 years, which is mainly due to higher energy prices, Corona-related delivery bottlenecks and special effects such as the withdrawal of the VAT reduction.
mmq / Reuters / dpa