The ECB wage tracker, updated with agreements up to November 2025 and extended to December 2026, suggests easing negotiated wage growth and reduced pressure variability across euro area countries in 2026.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has updated its wage tracker with collective bargaining agreements signed up to the end of November 2025. The forward-looking horizon has been extended to the end of December 2026.
The data indicates a slowdown in negotiated wage growth, consistent with information released after the October 2025 ECB Governing Council meeting. The tracker with smoothed one-off payments shows growth of 3.2% in 2025 and 2.3% in 2026, based on coverage of 49.5% and 28.8% of employees, respectively.
Using unsmoothed one-off payments, negotiated wage growth is 3.0% in 2025 and 2.7% in 2026. Excluding one-off payments, growth eases from 3.9% in 2025 to 2.6% in 2026. The headline ECB wage tracker, which smooths one-off payments, better reflects monthly or quarterly wage dynamics, while the unsmoothed indicator better captures annual changes.
In 2026, the headline wage tracker projects growth at 2.0% in Q1, rising to 2.7% in Q4, reflecting the dissipation of large one-off payments made in 2024. The tracker also indicates less variation in negotiated wage pressures across euro area countries in 2026 compared to previous years.
The unsmoothed wage tracker shows a more stable outlook, with growth rates of 3.1% in Q1 decreasing to 2.4% in Q3 and rising again to 2.7% in Q4. Employee coverage in 2026 decreases over the year, from 36.9% in Q1 to 23.4% in Q4. The ECB emphasizes that the data may be revised and that the forward-looking component is not a forecast but reflects current information from active agreements.
For context, the December 2025 Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections estimate a 4.0% growth in compensation per employee for 2025 and 3.2% for 2026. The ECB publishes four wage tracker indicators for nine euro area countries on its Data Portal.
Further details, including charts and tables, are available in the official ECB press release at this link.
