In the coming year, employers and trade unions will meet for collective bargaining in several sectors with many employees. The public sector is making the start of the 2023 collective bargaining round. The most recent financial statements should point the way.

For around eleven million employees with collective agreements of the DGB trade unions, wage negotiations are pending in the coming year, in which the compensation for high inflation is likely to be a central point. In view of the high inflation rates, the upcoming collective bargaining negotiations are all about safeguarding purchasing power," explained Thorsten Schulten, head of the collective bargaining archive of the Economic and Social Science Institute (WSI) of the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is close to the trade union.

The start will be made in the spring of 2023 by the public service of the federal government and municipalities with around 2.8 million employees according to the WSI. VERDI and the DBB tariff union are demanding 10.5 percent more wages for them. The second-largest collective bargaining round after the public sector is collective bargaining in retail with around 2.6 million employees and in wholesale and foreign trade (almost 1.2 million employees). Tariff increases are also being negotiated at Deutsche Post, Deutsche Bahn and in temporary work.

In some of the largest sectors such as the metal and electrical industry and the chemical industry, there are no negotiations. In the metal and electrical industry, the collective bargaining partners have just agreed on a new agreement that provides for 8.5 percent more wages in two stages over a period of 24 months and one-off payments of a tax-free inflation compensation premium of 3,000 euros.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, real wages in Germany are falling faster than ever before due to high inflation. Despite nominal increases, there was a real drop in earnings of 5.7 percent from July to September.