Hourly wages in France rose by 2.8% in the third quarter, compared to the corresponding period last year, new data from Insee, the French statistics office, has found.
This year-on-year increase is slightly down on the corresponding increase in Q2 2024, of 2.9%. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, hourly wages were 0.8% higher, following a 0.7% rise in Q2.
The data covers wages in the non-agricultural market sector, excluding services to households.
According to Insee, the slight decline in wage increases between Q2 and Q3 has resulted from a decline in inflation, with the consumer price index rising by just 1.7% over the year in Q3, down from 2.2% in Q2 and 6.1% at the peak of inflation in the last quarter of 2022.
At the same time, however, hourly wages have remained more dynamic than prices since the start of the year, the data showed.
In construction, hourly wages rose by 3.2% year-on-year in the third quarter, compared to a 2.7% increase in Q2, while in industry, wages grew at the same rate as the previous quarter, at 3.3%. In services, wage growth slowed slightly to 2.6%, from 2.7% in the previous quarter.
Within this, there were some standout figures – in the mining and quarrying sector, for example, wages grew by 3.3% in Q3, compared to a 7.1% year-on-year increase in Q2, while in electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply, wages were 4.1% higher in Q3, compared to a 0.7% decline in Q2.
In Q3 2024, hourly labour costs increased by 0.6% compared to the previous quarter, a slowdown from the 0.8% rise in Q2. Over the year, hourly labour costs grew by 3.2%, down from 3.4% in Q2, the Insee data showed.
The slower pace of increase in labour costs is primarily attributed to a reduction in exemptions from employer contributions, which had risen due to successive increases in the minimum wage since the end of 2021. Labour costs in construction saw an increase, aligning with the rise in wages, while in industry and services, the growth of labour costs slowed. Read more here.
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