The European Central Bank published an updated wage tracker based on active collective bargaining agreements signed up to end-February 2026, keeping the forward-looking horizon through December 2026. The update points to negotiated wage growth easing from 2025 to 2026 and stabilising at around 2.6% by end-2026, with the headline indicator (smoothed one-off payments) at 3.2% in 2025 and 2.3% in 2026. Relative to the February 2026 release, the 2026 headline reading was revised down by 0.1 percentage points. On alternative measures, the wage tracker with unsmoothed one-off payments shows negotiated wage growth of 3.0% in 2025 and 2.6% in 2026, while the series excluding one-off payments indicates an easing from 3.9% in 2025 to 2.6% in 2026. For 2026, the headline quarterly profile averages 1.9% in Q1, 2.1% in Q2, 2.5% in Q3 and 2.6% in Q4, with the rise over the year mainly attributed to statistical effects from earlier one-off payments rather than new wage pressures; employee coverage declines over the horizon, from 50.7% in 2025 to 39.7% in 2026 (44.1% in Q1 2026 and 36.3% in Q4 2026). The ECB indicated that, as additional agreements extending beyond 2026 are signed and coverage increases, it will extend the wage tracker’s forward-looking horizon to the first quarter of 2027 in the July 2026 data release.

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