The European Central Bank (ECB) wage tracker puts underlying euro-area negotiated wage growth at 2.8% on average through September 2027, but the reading covers a limited share of employees and is not a forecast.
Released Nov. 4, the update uses collective bargaining agreements signed through mid-October 2026. The tracker excluding one-off payments records 2.6% for 2026, then an average 2.8% from January to September 2027. These are annual growth rates for each stated period. The ECB says forward readings can change as new agreements are added, so they describe terms captured so far rather than the bank’s economic outlook.
Coverage represents a smaller share of employees as the tracker looks further ahead: 46.2% for 2026, 31.8% for the first half of 2027 and 23.3% in the third quarter. The ECB expects that final share to rise as more agreements enter the tracker. Until then, the third-quarter reading reflects a thinner slice of workers than the earlier periods.
The tracker combines agreements from nine euro-area countries. The ECB also cautions that its readings do not perfectly match a separate negotiated-wage indicator compiled from national data.
The headline series records 2.3% for 2026 after spreading collectively agreed one-off payments across a 12-month window. Those sums include inflation compensation, bonuses and backdated pay. Headline growth stands at 2.7% for the second half of 2026, 2.8% for the first half of 2027 and 2.4% in the third quarter. The ECB lifted its headline readings for the second half of 2026 and first half of 2027 by about 0.1 percentage points on average from its September 2026 release.
The bank said a drag from lump sums paid during the second half of 2024, which were not repeated in 2025, helped keep the headline measure lower in early 2026; the effect had faded by the latter half of 2026. Separately, its September staff projections put overall euro-area compensation per employee growth at 3.3% for 2026, a distinct economywide measure.
The updated 2.8% estimate is above the 2.6% figure for the same period in earlier ECB wage-tracker coverage. The ECB plans to publish its next update Dec. 18, 2026, extending the forward period to cover all of 2027.
