Wifo-Chef will renegotiate civil servants' salary agreement
In the third year of the recession, it is "worth considering from an overall economic perspective to reopen the civil servants' salary agreement," said Wifo head Gabriel Felbermayr on Tuesday. Because: "If civil servants get more than inflation, then it is difficult to negotiate elsewhere with a different logic."
Civil Servants' Salary Agreement: Wifo Head Felbermayr Points to Agreements Below Inflation
Felbermayr pointed out that there have been agreements below inflation in the past. "This is not the first budget crisis that Austria has experienced in its long history, and in all these budget crises it was also said that in the public sector wages do not rise above the inflation rate. I am also not talking about a zero wage round," said the economist. The salary increase for federal civil servants was negotiated by the previous government of ÖVP and Greens and was passed in December with the votes of ÖVP, Greens, FPÖ, and SPÖ in the National Council. It was agreed that salaries would increase by 0.3 percentage points below inflation this year and by 0.3 percentage points above inflation in 2026.
Wifo Head Felbermayr Wants to Rely More on Capital Market for Pensions
Felbermayr advocated on Tuesday at a press conference of the Vienna Stock Exchange to rely more on the capital market for pensions due to budgetary pressure. In the long term, capital investment is superior to the pay-as-you-go system. The EU countries Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands could serve as role models. The fact that the black-red-pink government is considering ideas in this direction is evident, according to Felbermayr, in the government program. According to this, a general pension fund contract should be negotiated by the social partners so that in the future all employees have access to a capital market-based company pension. Currently, only a quarter of employees are entitled to a company pension, which, according to a Wifo study, exacerbates social inequalities in pension levels.
(APA/Red)
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