Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on workers’ salaries: in Italy they have decreased by a thousand euros in 5 years
The salaries of Italian workers are decreasing: in the last five years they have decreased by a thousand euros, according to the latest report from the OECD, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Italians’ salaries have decreased: the data
The data shows great difficulties in recovery after the crisis pandemic of Covid-19, especially when comparing wages with the cost of living. The Italian problems are the same as those of several European countries: only in 8 European Union states, compared to 2019, was there an increase in wages that allowed workers to recover the loss of purchasing power due to inflation.
In addition to not being part of the small circle of countries that have managed to close the gap between salaries and the cost of living, Italy is also at the bottom of the list when it comes to wage growth: each Italian worker, on average, has lost a thousand euros per year between 2019 and 2022.
Although salaries are growing in Europe, after two years of decline, many countries are still struggling to return to pre-pandemic levels. The data of theOECD (the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) referring to the third quarter of 2023 are eloquent: there was an average increase of 1.4% in 25 of the 35 countries examined by the surveys, but in 20 of these the increase failed to reach the Q4 2019 mark.
The causes of the crisis: pandemic and wars
There are several factors that have had a negative impact on wages of workers in European countries: above all, obviously, the forced stop of the economy during the most complicated period of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the consequent increase in inflation also favored by the energy crisis that hit Europe in the final part of 2021.
Furthermore, precarious employment played a decisive role international geopolitical scenario, characterized in particular by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and subsequently by the new crisis in the Middle East. In this situation, both at a European and Italian level, there has been a significant and significant increase in the costs of basic necessities, together with increases in food and energy prices and those linked to petrol prices.
The two-year period 2021-2022, as reported by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, was very negative for the economies ofEuropean Union. On ‘Openpolis’ it is reported that if on the one hand wages and employment have risen, on the other the increase in income has not kept pace with inflation: the alignment with pre-pandemic levels of the relationship between wages and cost of living, therefore, has not yet been reached.
In Italy it is average salary it was 42 thousand euros in 2022, while only three years earlier it had reached 43 thousand euros. The highest peak of reduction, in our country, was recorded between 2019 and 2020, with a variation of -4.8% from one year to the next. These numbers are decidedly distant from those of Luxembourgthe “richest” country in Europe with an average annual income that in 2022 had reached 75 thousand euros, 5% more than the year before the pandemic.
