Press voice: 'Badische Zeitung' on real wage development in Germany

FREIBURG (dpa-AFX) - "Badische Zeitung" on real wage development in Germany:

"It's primarily about productivity," US Nobel Prize winner for economics Paul Krugman once said. A damn clever sentence that also helps in assessing the development of real wages in Germany. This seems encouraging at first glance. The purchasing power of wages has recently increased. But at second glance the picture is bleak. Despite the recent increases, employees cannot buy more with their wages and salaries than in 2019, says the Hans Böckler Foundation, which has close ties to the trade unions. (.) In the end, productivity is the decisive factor for the level of real wages. However, if productivity does not improve, strong real wage increases are not justified. This is the case in Germany. Like other EU countries, the German economy lags behind the USA in terms of productivity. Experts believe that digitalization in the economy is being pushed forward much more strongly there."/yyzz/DP/nas