After a losing close in December 2023, early 2024 Salaries began to decline due to inflation. In January they grew 16.4% less than monthly inflation of 20.6%. A drop of 3.5%.
But not all sectors have suffered the same fate. While Wages in the registered private sector have increased by 20% and prices are about the same Thanks to joint agreements updated from month to month, the salaries of public employees increased only by 12.1%, and those of non-registered private employees even less: by 11.2%.
Therefore, private wages recorded a monthly decline of 0.5%. “Thus, over the last nineteen months, in seventeen of them, the interannual change in wages has been lower than inflation,” says the consultancy ACM.
The public sector had a decline in real terms of 7% “Thus, after eleven consecutive months of higher real wages compared to the previous year, negative results were observed in the last three months of analysis.” And in real terms, the purchasing power of the unregistered private sector suffered a decline of 7.8%, once again with the worst evolution compared to inflation.
Compared to a year ago (January 2023), inflation was 254.2% and salaries increased by 181%, a loss of 20.7%. As a result, the drop in wages, depending on the different segments, was as follows: the public sector lost 24.3%; the registered private sector, 13.9% and the unregistered private sector, 36.7%, once again the most affected segment.
The ACM Consulting Company also considers the evolution of real salary compared to real salary food inflationa major component of consumer spending.
We read that “if we examine the recorded salaries adjusted for food inflation, which in the month of analysis reached 296.5% on an annual basis, a much less favorable performance is evident. Specifically, the recorded private sector real wage as measured by the CPI shows a decline of 14%, while compared to specific food inflation, a decline of 23.1% is observed year-on-year. This allows for a clearer view of the impact that food inflation is having on wages”adds ACM.
From these data it can be deduced that poverty levels worsened in January, even more so because pensioners and retirees were earning the same as in December.
Source: Clarin
