Informations Rapides · 14 February 2025 · n° 35

In Q4 2024, hourly wages increased by 2.1% over a year, hourly costs by 2.5% Labour cost index (LCI) – Flash estimate - fourth quarter 2024

Year on year, hourly wages slowed sharply in the non-agricultural market sector (excluding services to households) in the fourth quarter of 2024: +2.1%, after +2.8% in the previous quarter. This slowdown was part of a trend that has been observed since mid-2023, as wage negotiations took account of falling inflation. In addition, this quarter, the year-on-year decline in the payments of the Value Sharing Premium (“PPV”) weighed on wage growth: €1.8 billion have been paid to employees in the fourth quarter of 2024, compared with €2.6 billion in the end of 2023.

In average annual changes, over the whole of 2024, hourly wages rose by an average of 2.7% (after +4.2% in 2023 and +3.5% in 2022), i.e. more than prices (+2.0% in average in 2024, after +4.9% in 2023 and +5.2% in 2022). The gains in real wages observed in 2024 offset, only in part, the losses accumulated in 2022 and 2023.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, hourly wages slowed particularly in services (+1.8% over a year, after +2.6%), the sector where PPV payments declined the most over a year. Wages also slowed in industry (+2.8% over a year, after +3.3%) and construction (+2.7%, after +3.2%), but increases remained strong in these sectors.

The hourly labour costs (wages and salaries, contributions, taxes net of subsidies) in the non-agricultural market sector also slowed, in line with wages: +2.5% in the fourth quarter of 2024, after +3.2% in the previous quarter. The rise in labour costs over a year was stronger than the rise in wages due to a decrease in the amounts of apprenticeship aid and the decline in exemptions of employers’ contributions, which had sharply increased between the end of 2021 and the end of 2023.