An average increase of 3.5% in salaries, this would be the expected effort that companies would make in 2025, a figure slightly lower than the first estimates communicated last July. According to the study carried out by the WTW group, specialized in insurance and reinsurance brokerage, this means that half of the employees will receive an increase less than this figure.
A projection that places France a little below the world economies, behind Canada (3.6%), Germany and the United States (3.7%), and far behind China (4.6%) and Brazil (5.9%). But these latter countries would prefer to appear as an anomaly, because according to the study, the slowdown in wage increases is a global trend.
This forecast of 3.5% for 2025 is lower than the actual increase agreed for 2024, of 3.8%. And 46% of the companies surveyed acknowledge that the real increases are lower than those of the previous year. This is due to the significant weight of certain cost items, or to financial results that are lower than expected.
However, these average salary increases represent a real boost for employees, because they are still higher than real inflation. “The average budgets for salary increases for 2025, expected above the inflation observed in 2024 and planned for 2025, reflect the desire of companies to maintain their competitiveness in a tense labor market,” says Khalil Ait-Mouloud, director of the Compensation Surveys activity. on WTW France. In 2025, inflation should be around 1% according to INSEE.
Reevaluation of remuneration to continue attracting talent
This increase in salary budgets occurs in a context of persistent tensions over attracting and retaining talent. If the difficulties are less than in previous years, 37% of the companies surveyed declare that they continue to have difficulties recruiting the talent they need, compared to 42% in 2023 and 44% in 2022. For 66% of the companies that announce When they carry out a review of their remuneration policies, they do so in all remuneration scales and not in specific measures that affect only a part of the employees.
Beyond salary measures, the lines of action favored by companies to continue attracting are employee experience (80% of respondents) and the implementation of DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies (73%).
The WTW “Salary Budget Planning” – January 2025 Edition survey was conducted in October 2024. The survey covers 155 countries and more than 1,000 companies in France, covering a wide range of French sectors and groups, as well as subsidiaries of foreign companies. Groups operating in France responded.
Source: BFM TV
