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No real inflation-related salary increases over past three years

Details

earningsThe Citizen reports that ongoing economic challenges hampered the ability of companies to pay inflation-related salary increases over the past three years.

These challenges included significant increases in the operating cost environment partly due to the impact of load shedding, as well as global factors. However, the BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BTPI), which tracks the average nominal take-home pay of approximately 4 million salary earners in SA, ended the 2023 year on a slightly better note, as salaries and private pensions performed slightly better than in the year before. “The average nominal take-home pay was 5.6% higher at R15,409 in December 2023 compared to the R14,596 recorded in December 2022,” BankservAfrica’s Shergeran Naidoo reported. But the average nominal take-home pay in 2023 was only slightly better than the averages noted in 2022 and 2021, suggesting a sideways movement over the past three years. With inflation on the rise during this period, salary earners were worse off in real terms for the third consecutive year, Naidoo pointed out. After declining for three consecutive months, annual growth in the average real take-home pay was flat in December 2023. The real take-home pay at R13,732 in December 2023 was slightly higher than in November, but for the year, average real take-home pay dropped by 4.7% compared to 2022, suggesting significant ongoing erosion in the purchasing power of salary earners. In 2023, the average private pension of R10,657 was 6.8% higher on a year-on-year basis, signalling that the purchasing power of pensioners had endured even in the high inflation environment.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ina Opperman at The Citizen


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