The European Central Bank published an update to its wage tracker of active collective bargaining agreements, incorporating agreements signed up to 19 February 2025, and the results are broadly unchanged from the release following the January Governing Council meeting. The headline indicator shows negotiated wage growth of 4.7% in 2024 and 3.3% in 2025 with one-off payments smoothed over 12 months, pointing to easing negotiated wage pressures overall in 2025. Alternative measures show different contributions from one-off payments: negotiated wage growth is 4.8% in 2024 and 2.8% in 2025 when one-off payments are not smoothed, while the tracker excluding one-off payments indicates 4.1% in 2024 and 3.9% in 2025. The decline in the forward-looking profile for 2025 partly reflects the mechanical drop-out of large one-off payments made in 2024 and the front-loaded nature of some 2024 sectoral wage increases; average employee coverage is 48.2% for 2024 and 40.5% for 2025 across seven participating euro area countries. The ECB notes the forward-looking component is not a forecast and may be revised as new agreements are signed; for broader context, it references the March 2025 projection exercise showing compensation per employee growth of 4.6% in 2024 and 3.4% in 2025, with a quarterly profile for 2025 of 3.8% in Q1, 3.7% in Q2, 3.4% in Q3 and 2.8% in Q4.

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