Image: ROLAND SCHLAGER (APA)
Regardless of the salary level, they are offering a plus of 5 percent from 2024 and an additional one-off payment of 800 euros, the Chamber of Commerce announced on Thursday at lunchtime. The “cost-of-living bonus” is tax-free, meaning employees would receive more net income.
The union’s demand remains unchanged with an 11 percent salary increase. The employee representatives reject one-off payments. In a year with high inflation, one-off payments instead of a sustained increase would be “a very bad deal because an employee would lose tens of thousands of euros in their lifetime income,” the chairwoman of the GPA union, Barbara Teiber, had admitted in advance.
“In order to increase purchasing power, deals need to be above the inflation rate”
The employers see the union’s demand for a salary increase of 11 percent fulfilled with their starting salary offer. According to dealer calculations, the offer there corresponds to an increase of 11.13 percent. In higher salary categories (2,500 to 3,000 euros gross salary per month) the increase would be 8.79 percent or 8.16 percent from next year.
While prices have increased by an average of 30.7 percent since 2016, wages have only increased by an average of 24.7 percent, and in retail by 22.6 percent, according to Jakob Sturn, economist at the Momentum Institute. “To ensure that employees do not lose their disposable income due to increased prices, the Momentum Institute recommends that wages should at least be adjusted to reflect rolling inflation. In order to increase purchasing power, sales must be above the inflation rate,” says the trade union-affiliated institute.
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