São Paulo – The global wage average remains below pre-2008 crisis levels and is recovering slowly in developed countries. In developing nations, however, average wages have grown at a faster pace in the last few years and should remain so. In all cases, however, increased worker income is not in keeping with the productivity growth seen in enterprises. So says the Global Wage Report released last Friday (7th) by the International Labour Organization (ILO).
According to the agency, which belongs to the United Nations, in 2011 the average global wage was 1.2% higher than in 2010. In developed nations, wages were down 0.5% from 2006 to 2011 and should be up by nearly zero in 2012. During that same period, wages were up 5% in Asia; 5.2% in Eastern Europe; 2.2% in Latin America; 2.1% in Africa; and down 0.2% in the Middle East. In 2012, wages are expected to rise in Asia, Latin America, Caribbean and Africa, according to the ILO.
The study also reports the increase in wages over the past 12 years. From 2000 to 2011, wages have grown by an average of 25%; Asia saw a more than twofold increase, and Eastern Europe saw a threefold increase. Wages were up 18% in Africa and 15% in Latin America. In the developed world, wages were by an average of 5%.
According to the report, workers in developed countries are still paid higher wages than their emerging country counterparts. In 2010, a manufacturing worker was paid US$ 1.41 per hour worked in the Philippines, US$ 4.74 in Hungary, US$ 4.86 in Poland, US$ 5.41 in Brazil (the fourth lowest wage out of 30 countries surveyed), US$ 7.16 in Portugal, US$ 14.53 in Spain, US$ 23.32 in the United States, and US$ 34.78 in Denmark, the highest wage of all countries surveyed.
The study also looks into the wage paid-to-worker productivity increase ratio and concludes that wages grew by a lower rate than output. “Also included in the report are recent findings that show wages have grown at a slower pace than labour productivity – the value of goods and services produced per person employed – over the past decades in a majority of countries for which data is available,” according to the study.
ILO director-general Guy Ryder said the differences between productivity and wages are “undesirable” and must be reversed in the countries where it takes place. The “[…] clearest interpretation is that workers and their families are not receiving the fair share they deserve,” he said.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
