Wages and salaries increased since the last year, according to official figures. It was not a very significant rise in nominal terms, but it was higher than inflation, so the real earnings of wage and salary earners also improved timidly, both in the private and public sectors.
The index of of wage and salary earnings produced by Statistics Finland, which measures the rise in the nominal earnings of full-time wage and salary earners, rose by 1.8% in July to September 2020 when compared with the respective period in 2019.
Real earnings of employees also rose by 1,5% compared to the third quarter of the previous year because the rise in earnings level was faster than that in consumer prices, the statistical office says.
In the private sector, the nominal earnings of full-time wage and salary earners rose from July to September 2019 to the corresponding period in 2020 by 1.8%. The increase in the central government sector was 1.8% and in the local government sector 1.9%.
Source: Statistics Finland.
Earnings in government sector
Earnings development started to rise again at the beginning of 2020 both in local government and central government. It was agreed in the Competitiveness Pact that public sector holiday bonuses would be reduced by 30% in the years 2017 to 2019.
The holiday bonus cut ended after summer 2019 and this turns the index of wage and salary earnings up in the public sectors at the beginning of 2020.
Wage and salary earnings of local government and central government sectors start to rise again in the third quarter of 2020 because wages and salaries were raised by a general increase in August 2020.
Index of regular earnings
The index for regular earnings describes the permanent change in earnings better than the index of wage and salary earnings because it does not take into account performance-based bonuses and non-recurring items included in collective agreements.
The index of regular earnings rose by 1.6% in July to September 2020 when compared with the respective period in 2019.
The growth amounted to 1.8% in the private sector, to 1.1% in the central government sector, and to 1.1% in the local government sector.
