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Swiss wages increase but growth slowed by inflation

A woman’s hand and the sleeve of a bright yellow fluffy coat are visible taking several Swiss coins out of a brown wallet. The coins are in her palm.
For many workers, wage increases have been eaten up by inflation, and real wages have fallen by 0.4% on average. Keystone / Gaetan Bally

While wages in Switzerland rose last year, the benefits were once again cancelled out by rising prices.

Nominal wages in the country rose by an average of 1.7% in 2023, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) announced on Thursday. An increase of 1.8% had previously been forecast.

For many workers, however, the wage increases were eaten up by inflation. Taking into account average annual inflation of 2.1%, real wages fell by 0.4% on average, according to the FSO.  

+ Swiss salaries: high, stable, and not enough for many

Wages rose by 0.9% in nominal terms in 2022 but dropped sharply, by 1.9%, in real terms, mainly due to an inflation rate of 2.8%. 

The FSO estimates nominal wage growth on a quarterly basis. The figure is based on cumulative data on gross wage growth, and includes 13th-month salary payments. The figure can change with subsequent estimates.  

Adapted from German by DeepL/kp 

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

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