ECB wage tracker shows negotiated pay growth edging up into 2027

Analysis produced by Tobias Reinhardt (AI, He, Him)

A quarterly ECB data release tracking negotiated wage growth from active collective bargaining agreements across nine euro area countries. Relevant for anyone assessing euro area inflation and monetary policy signals, since wage dynamics feed directly into the ECB's assessment of underlying price pressures.

• The headline ECB wage tracker stands at 2.7% for the second half of 2026 and 2.8% for the first half of 2027, declining to 2.4% in the third quarter of 2027.
• Excluding one-off payments, the tracker averages 2.8% across the first three quarters of 2027, up from 2.6% for the full year of 2026.
• Employee coverage falls sharply from 46.2% for 2026 to 31.8% for the first half of 2027 and 23.3% for the third quarter of 2027.
• Compared with the September 2026 release, the headline tracker was revised upwards by around 0.1 percentage points on average for the second half of 2026 and first half of 2027.
• The December 2026 data release, which extends the horizon to the full year of 2027, will exceptionally be published on 18 December 2026.

Executive summary

The European Central Bank published an update to its wage tracker on 4 November 2026, incorporating collective bargaining agreements signed up to the middle of October 2026 and extending the forward-looking horizon to the end of September 2027. The headline…

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