Changes in collective labour agreement wages

The hourly wage rates agreed under collective labour agreements, including special remunerations rose by 6.8 percent in the third quarter of 2024. This increase is as high as the change in Q4 2023, when the largest CLA wage increase in over 40 years was recorded. Contractual wage costs (collectively agreed wages and employer contributions) rose by 7.0 percent in Q3 2024. As a result, the change in contractual wage costs was slightly above the change in CLA wages. This is mainly due to an increase in the employer's differentiated premium for the Invalidity Insurance Fund (AOF) in 2024, while the health insurance premium decreased.

Of the three different sectors, the CLA wages increased the most in the private sector (by 7.3 percent) in Q3 2024. In the public sector and in subsidised institutions, wages increased by 7.1 and 5.4 percent respectively.

Between 2020 and Q3 2024, CLA wages rose the most in the public sector (21.9 percent). In the collective labour agreement sector of subsidised institutions, wages increased by 20.0 percent during this period and by 20.2 percent in privately held companies.

The provisional figure for Q3 2024 is based on 95 percent of the collective labour agreements for which the statistic is compiled. Three quarters of workers are covered by a collective labour agreement.

In December 2023, CBS started a new series of CLA wages, using 2020 as the base year.

Collective wages, final figures 2023

In 2023, the collective wages per hour, including special remunerations, increased by 6.1 percent year on year. This increase is nearly twice that of 2022 (3.2 percent) and the highest after 1982.

At the sector level, the largest collective wage increase in 2023 was in the transportation and storage sector at 8.5 percent. The smallest wage increase among sectors was in real estate activities; wages rose by 2.5 percent in 2023.