Real wages and productivity: who benefits from the wealth produced?

Read the figures correctly

In its 21 April 2026 release, the Federal Statistical Office reports average nominal wage growth of 1.8 per cent and real-wage growth of 1.6 per cent in 2025. The real-wage index remains below its 2020 base. A positive annual change and full recovery of earlier losses are therefore different questions.

Nominal pay is expressed in francs. Real pay adjusts its movement using a price index. This enables comparison over time; it is not the budget of every household. Spending patterns and compulsory costs can differ substantially. A national average also does not reveal how an increase is distributed among occupations.

A wage index must be distinguished from average employee compensation calculated from national accounts. Coverage, income components and methods may differ. Comparing two curves without identifying those differences can give a weak conclusion an appearance of scientific precision.

What productivity allows us to discuss

Productivity relates output to labour input. It measures neither the moral worth of a profession nor each worker’s individual merit. It depends on equipment, organisation, accumulated knowledge and infrastructure. Reliable transport, public education and health also support production.

An increase can reflect better tools and less wasted effort. It can also accompany work intensification or a shift in the composition of activity. Health, quality and employment stability therefore belong in the assessment. More output with fewer staff is not social progress if it requires a pace that cannot be sustained.

For the PCP, productivity gains create a collectively produced scope for improvement. They can raise pay, reduce working time, finance training and equipment renewal, or strengthen public provision. Their allocation follows decisions and power relations rather than an automatic economic law.

Bargain beyond the average

Wage policy should protect incomes that leave the least room after fixed expenses. The same percentage produces different sums at different pay levels. Bargaining should be able to combine recovery of losses, improvement of low pay and progression recognising qualifications.

A business’s circumstances matter and should be documented. Calls for restraint must be considered alongside profit distributions, executive remuneration, transactions within corporate groups and planned investment. Employees cannot be asked to carry difficulties without the information needed to understand them.

Collective agreements can establish lasting guarantees. They should also support employee representation and verifiable job classifications. An announced rise loses its value if duties are downgraded, hours go unpaid or contracts become less secure.

An hourly rate is not the whole income

Workers can receive more per hour and less at the end of the month if their paid hours fall against their wishes. Conversely, higher earnings can come from longer working time. The hourly price, duration and allowances must be examined separately.

The PCP defends greater worker control over schedules. Predictability makes it possible to organise care, education and other commitments. Better organisation should release time and reduce wear, rather than require permanent availability without guaranteed earnings.

Shorter working time must be discussed alongside staffing, pay and organisation. Without adjustment, the same tasks may simply be compressed. Real progress requires achievable objectives and maintained service quality.

Private income and collective services

Living standards also depend on what people must buy individually. Accessible public transport, collectively financed education and dependable childcare expand people’s choices. Weakening them can absorb part of a pay rise through additional private expenditure.

That does not justify replacing wage increases with promises of future services. It requires two coherent policies: better pay for work and collective provision where appropriate. Funding must be explicit, reflect economic capacity and come with scrutiny of how resources are used.

Build a wage assessment that can be checked

Bargaining should define its period, categories, full- and part-time coverage, basic pay and supplements. Changes in workforce composition can move an average without improving the position of someone remaining in the same job. Departures and recruitment must therefore be distinguished from actual pay adjustments.

The PCP calls for collective increases and amounts dependent on individual assessment to be visible. An overall allocation does not show how many employees received a rise. Permanent measures must be separated from one-off payments: a bonus does not change the base for later years in the same way.

Qualification reviews should recognise duties performed rather than job titles alone. Additional responsibilities can remain invisible within outdated classifications. Worker representatives must be able to request reconsideration through understandable procedures and shared criteria. This particularly concerns coordination, knowledge transfer and care, whose contribution is difficult to reduce to a volume produced.

Disagreement requires identifiable avenues. An appeal without a handling deadline or access to relevant evidence risks becoming merely formal. Personal information must be protected, while aggregate results allow consistency to be examined. Scrutiny should reveal repeated gaps among groups, classifications or units.

This approach does not impose an identical pay formula on every activity. It creates the conditions for an honest discussion of distribution: what was produced, what was shared and who remains excluded. For the PCP, economic information should increase workers’ bargaining capacity rather than become an inaccessible justification for decisions made without them.

The PCP’s measures

The PCP assesses distribution through real wages, low incomes, guaranteed hours, occupational health, access to training and service quality. No single indicator describes the whole outcome.

People who produce should have greater say and better lives. Investment should strengthen their capabilities; bargaining should secure a tangible share of results; public institutions should organise the common conditions of development. A more productive economy must deliver identifiable social progress, beyond an increase in returns to ownership.