The vigorous growth in Germany since the beginning of the year is showing on the increase in gross incomes which, in the second 2011 quarter, went up by 4.2% in average compared with the same period in 2010. It is the third strongest increase since 2008, and the result of the disappearance of short-time working, of more generous collective agreements, of the increase in bonuses and of working time. In the first 2011 quarter, the average work week also went up to nearly 41 hours, as opposed to a little over 39 hours during the crisis. These developments also come with an increase in hourly labor costs. (Ref. 110567)
Real wages are up… The indicators of the Federal Statistics Agency (Destatis) show that gross monthly incomes for a full-time job increased, in average, by 4.2% in the second 2011 quarter. It is the third strongest quarterly increase since the beginning of 2008. In detail, the processing industry ranks first with an average 7% increase, followed by banking and insurance (4.6%), chemistry (4.1%) and the metal industry (2.7%) – the latter negotiated its wage increases in early 2010, in the mid
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