New data release: ECB wage tracker continues to suggest normalisation of negotiated wage pressures in 2026

The European Central Bank (ECB) wage tracker, which covers active collective bargaining agreements, indicates negotiated wage growth with smoothed one-off payments of 3.2% in 2025 (based on a coverage of 49.9% of employees in participating countries) and 2.4% in 2026 (based on a coverage of 33.1%). Compared with the December 2025 data release, the ECB wage tracker with smoothed one-off payments was revised up by 0.1 percentage points for 2026. The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments indicates negotiated wage growth of 3.0% in 2025 and 2.7% in 2026. The wage tracker excluding one-off payments indicates an easing of negotiated wage growth from 3.9% in 2025 to 2.7% in 2026 (revised up by 0.1 percentage points for 2026). 

The headline ECB wage tracker is better suited to describing quarterly or monthly dynamics in negotiated wages as it smooths one-off payments over time. Meanwhile, the ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments is better suited to describing yearly dynamics, ensuring that one-off payments are not smoothed twice when constructing the yearly outcomes.
 
For 2026 the headline ECB wage tracker stands at 2.1% in the first half of the year and at 2.7% in the second half of the year. The rise in the wage path over the course of the year is related to the dissipation of the mechanical downward effect of large one-off payments that were made in 2024 but not in 2025. These mechanical effects are expected to virtually disappear over the course of 2026, and the wage trackers with one-off payments (smoothed and unsmoothed) and without one-off payments are expected to converge as such payments become less relevant. The ECB wage tracker also suggests that there is less dispersion in negotiated wage pressures across the different euro area countries in 2026 than in previous years. 

The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments also reflects a more stable and less volatile outlook for negotiated wage growth in 2026 (2.9% in the first half of the year, 2.6% in the second half) compared with previous years. The wage tracker excluding one-off payments stands at 2.7% for both the first and second half of 2026, also suggesting more moderate dynamics in negotiated base wages than in previous years. Employee coverage for 2026 stands at 37.1% for the first half of the year and 29.2% for the second half. See Chart 1 and Table 1 for further details. 

For this data release, the forward-looking horizon of the wage tracker remains unchanged at December 2026. As new agreements are being signed and coverage of contracts reaching beyond 2026 is gradually increasing, the forward-looking horizon of the wage tracker will be extended to the first quarter of 2027 in the July 2026 data release.

Overall, the ECB wage tracker may be subject to revisions, and the forward-looking component should not be interpreted as a forecast, as it only captures information that is currently available for active collective bargaining agreements. Moreover, the ECB wage tracker does not track the indicator of negotiated wage growth precisely, and deviations are to be expected over time. For a more comprehensive assessment of wage developments in the euro area, please refer to the December 2025 Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area, which indicate a yearly growth rate of compensation per employee in the euro area of 4.0% in 2025 and 3.2% in 2026.

The ECB publishes four wage tracker indicators for the aggregate of the nine participating euro area countries on the ECB Data Portal.