Between the end of 2019 and the end of 2024, the basic monthly wage (SMB) rose by 14.5% in private sector companies with 10 or more employees. This sharp increase was fuelled by the rise in the minimum wage (+17.7%), resulting from ten upward adjustments linked to high inflation. It was accompanied by a distortion in the quarterly profile of gross SMB increases, which, from 2022 to 2024, were more concentrated in Q1, affecting more jobs and resulting in higher average increases. This higher concentration at the beginning of the year is not linked to minimum wage increases, which usually take place throughout the year, but appears to stem from inflation being factored into collective bargaining to maintain wage scales, particularly in sectors with few minimum-wage earners. The fall in inflation and the return to a much more moderate pace of minimum wage increases are expected to put an end to these atypical trends from early 2025...