The European Central Bank published an updated wage tracker for active collective bargaining agreements in nine euro area countries, incorporating agreements signed up to mid-April 2026. The forward-looking signal was broadly unrevised from the March 2026 release and points to stable negotiated wage growth around 2.6% by the end of 2026. The headline tracker with smoothed one-off payments shows 3.2% growth in 2025 based on 51.3% employee coverage and 2.3% in 2026 based on 41.9% coverage, while the version with unsmoothed one-off payments and the version excluding one-off payments both show 2.6% for 2026. Within 2026, the headline indicator averages 1.8% in the first quarter, 2.1% in the second quarter and 2.6% in the third and fourth quarters. The ECB attributes the upward path through the year to the fading mechanical drag from large one-off payments made in 2024 but not in 2025. The unsmoothed series averages 2.9% in the first quarter, 2.6% in the second quarter and 2.5% in the second half, while the measure excluding one-off payments is around 2.6% through the year after 2.7% in the first quarter. Employee coverage for 2026 declines from 45.6% in the first quarter to 38.8% in the fourth quarter. The forward-looking horizon remains capped at December 2026 and is expected to be extended to the first quarter of 2027 in the July 2026 data release as more agreements running beyond 2026 are added. For this release, the Austrian series was expanded to start in January 2013. The ECB notes that the forward-looking component is conditional on currently active agreements and may be revised.

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