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 51.3% of employees in participating countries) and 2.3% in 2026 (based on a coverage of 41.9%).
Compared with the March 2026 data release, the ECB wage tracker with smoothed one-off payments is unrevised for 2026. The ECB wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments indicates negotiated wage growth of 3.0% in 2025 and 2.6% in 2026. The wage tracker excluding one-off payments indicates an easing of negotiated wage growth from 3.8% in 2025 to 2.6% in 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.
For 2026 the headline ECB wage tracker averages 1.8% in the first quarter, 2.1% in the second quarter, and 2.6% in the third and fourth quarters. 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. This mechanical effect is expected to virtually disappear over the course of 2026 in the headline indicator. The deeply uncertain economic situation could lead to a stronger role for one-off payments in the coming year, but this is not yet reflected in the new collective bargaining agreements signed since the March 2026 data release.
