Would the end of 2024 have been mild with the purchasing power of the French? In any case, this is what the data of DARESwhich published this Friday, March 21, the evolution of basic wages in the private sector in the fourth quarter of 2024. According to the statistics department of the Ministry of Labor, between December 2023 and December 2024, the basic monthly salary of these employees increased by 2.8 %. In comparison, the increase in consumer prices was estimated at 1.2 % (excluding tobacco).
3.1 % for workers, 2.6 % for managers
However, this development is not homogeneous and varies according to socio -professional categories and sectors of activity. Disparities that the dares highlights. According to the statistical service, workers benefit from the highest increase, with an increase of 3.1 %, followed by employees and intermediate professions with an increase of 2.7 %, while executives recorded a more moderate increase of 2.6 %.
On the sectoral level, the industry displays the highest increase in basic monthly salary with an increase of 3.3 %, illustrating the efforts of employers to attract and retain a workforce which often lacks. The tertiary sector recorded an increase of 2.7 %, while construction experienced a more limited increase of 2.5 %. Despite these increases, salary gains remain insufficient to completely compensate for the loss of purchasing power accumulated in 2022 and 2023, Note our colleagues from Echo.
An increase of 0.5 % expected in the first quarter of 2025
This increase should continue, but be less pronounced. According to An INSEE conjuncture notein the first quarter of 2025, the increase in basic monthly salary should be 0.5 %, “a pace much lower than that of the first quarters of 2023 and 2024”.
This because of the lack of automatic revaluation of the minimum wage on January 1, due to its anticipation in November, and the “taking into account the slowdown in prices in compulsory annual negotiations”. Inflation, it, dropped to 0.8 % in February, should rise to 1.1 % in the first half, According to INSEE.