The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Germany: Real wages are falling more and more due to high inflation

2022-11-29T10:09:24.091Z


Prices in Germany are currently rising much faster than wages. As a result, real wages fell by 5.7 percent between July and September - the highest loss since the survey began.


Enlarge image

Banknotes in wallet: income depleted

Photo: Monika Skolimowska / dpa

Persistently high inflation is increasingly devaluing people's salaries in Germany.

In the third quarter, they were nominally 2.3 percent higher than in the same period of the previous year, but were more than eaten up by the 8.4 percent increase in consumer prices.

According to further calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, this results in a real wage loss, i.e. adjusted for price developments, of 5.7 percent.

This is the highest loss since the statistics were introduced in 2008, the agency reports.

In the previous three quarters, people had already had to accept losses in real wages.

The values ​​increased from -1.4 percent in the final quarter of 2021 to -1.8 percent at the beginning of the year to -4.4 percent in the second quarter of 2022. Statistically, such a long period of real wage losses has not yet occurred.

The gross salaries including special payments are included in the nominal wages.

Eight minutes of work for half a pound of butter

For a more precise picture of the current situation, the German Economic Institute published a different, clear calculation a few days ago: How long do you have to work in order to be able to afford certain everyday things?

And how has this working time changed during the crisis?

For their answers, the researchers use average values ​​from the Federal Statistical Office.

The results were particularly ugly in the case of food.

Whereas a consumer had to work six minutes for half a pound of branded butter in 2019, it was already eight minutes in October – an increase of a third.

A quarter more working time has to be invested for ten eggs than in 2019, and twelve percent more for bread.

Steak has also increased: it takes 36 minutes to produce a kilogram of beef today, compared to 30 minutes in the last year before the crisis.

Working hours for energy have also risen sharply.

ptz/dpa

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2022-11-29

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.