Wages have been regaining purchasing power in recent days and inflation has slowed, but in real terms they remain below pre-pandemic levels in 16 of the 35 OECD countries for which data are available, including Portugal.
In its annual Employment Outlook report released on Tuesday, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) explains that, on average, wages were 1.45% higher in the first quarter of this year than in the fourth quarter of 2019, just before the coronavirus crisis began.
However, the purchasing power of wages remains lower in countries such as Germany (-2%), Italy (-6.9%), Sweden (-7.5%), Australia (-4.8%), Spain (-2.5%) or the United States (-0.8%).
This situation contrasts with countries where real wages (excluding the effects of inflation) increased by more than 5% over this period, such as Costa Rica (5.1%), Latvia (8.2%), Lithuania (16.5%), Poland (9.3%), Hungary (13.5%), Slovenia (9.2%), Mexico (5.4%) or Israel (6.8%).
In Portugal, wages in the first quarter of this year were 5% higher than in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Presenting the report to the press, OECD Employment Director Stefano Scarpetta stressed that the losses in purchasing power accumulated after the pandemic crisis are being corrected by lower inflation.
In the first quarter of 2024, real wages rose year-on-year in 29 of the 35 countries for which data are available, with an average increase of 3.5%, and just 1% in the United States.
The highest growth over 12 months was recorded in Costa Rica (16.4%), but it also exceeded 5% in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Mexico (5.7%) and Austria.
The only exceptions to this increase were Belgium, New Zealand, Sweden and, above all, Japan, where wages lost 1.76% of their purchasing power over twelve months.
In Portugal, real wage growth was 3% in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year, below the OECD average.
The evolution of the minimum wage in countries for which data are available has varied markedly, as it has increased in real terms since the pandemic crisis (especially between May 2019 and May 2024) in all countries except Israel (-0.9%) and the United States (-18.46%).
In the case of the United States, it should be noted that while the federal minimum wage has not changed since 2009, the wage set in the States has changed.
Excluding this particular situation, on average across the 30 OECD members with a national minimum wage, the increase over these four years was 12.8%.
The increase was less pronounced in France (0.9%), Japan (6.3%) or Spain (6.5%), while it was above average in Colombia (12.5%), Germany (13.2%) or the United Kingdom (13.3%), Poland (32.1%), Turkey (41.7%) and, above all, Mexico (86%).
There were 662 million jobs in the OECD in April, up 3.8% from before the pandemic crisis.
The unemployment rate affected only 4.9% of the active population, which is only a tenth of a percentage point above the historical low since 2001.
The increase was greater in women (5%) than in men (3%).
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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