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 49.5% of employees in participating countries) and 2.3% in 2026 (based on a coverage of 28.8%). 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 2.6% in 2026. The headline ECB wage tracker is better suited to describing quarterly or monthly dynamics in negotiated wages as it smoothens 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 2.0% in the first quarter, 2.1% in the second quarter, 2.5% in the third quarter and 2.7% in the fourth quarter. 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. The ECB wage tracker also suggests that there is less dispersion in negotiated wage pressures across the different euro area countries in 2026 in comparison with previous years.