Half of the managers of very small businesses (TPE) and SMEs plan to increase the salaries of their employees in 2022, according to a quarterly barometer published on Wednesday by the public bank Bpifrance and the Rexecode institute.
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While recruitment difficulties are the first obstacle to the activity of SMEs, these salary increases are three-quarters motivated by the desire to retain employees, according to the results of the survey conducted from January 31 to February 9. with more than 600 SMEs and VSEs in the non-agricultural market sectors.
Of the half of those companies planning to raise wages this year, 63% believe the increase will be higher than the average for the three years before the Covid-19 crisis, and 33% of the same magnitude.
Within the other half, which will not increase salaries, 57% say they have insufficient results to do so, but 48% say they want
to “prioritize the granting of remuneration ancillary to salary”
such as bonuses,
Sales price increases in 2022
On the other hand, a majority (58%) of managers of SMEs and VSEs
"plan to increase their selling prices in 2022"
, still according to the barometer which specifies that among them, 88% envisage a higher increase in their prices to that of the last three years before the crisis.
For SMEs, which represent 30% of employment in the market sector in France (excluding agriculture and finance),
"today we have a little more price increases than wages, which shows that there is no has no automatic adjustment yet”
wages on prices that could lead to an inflationary spiral feared by some economists, explained to AFP Baptiste Thornary, head of economic studies at Bpifrance.
According to the survey, anticipated price increases are thus an average of 3.8%, while expected wage increases only reach an average of 2.2%.
Degradation of their margins
Nevertheless, 34% of SME/VSE managers anticipate a deterioration in their margin this year, but for three-quarters of them, it will be
"a slight deterioration"
, reports Baptiste Thornary.
This deterioration underlies an increase in non-wage costs higher than the increase in selling prices for SMEs, whose cash position remains comfortable but
"has deteriorated in recent months"
, according to the survey.
Finally, investment
“would remain dynamic in 2022”,
with 59% of SME / VSE managers who intend to invest, against only 55% a year ago.