PwC’s HR barometer: Companies began adjusting wages to address inflation

Most companies in Romania, 75% of them more precisely, have adjusted or will adjust wages to unexpected inflation or by a rate lower than the inflation but higher than the initially planned wage rise, the HR Barometer survey carried out by PwC Romania revealed.

The rest of the companies have decided to maintain the salary increase included in the initial budget drafted in 2021 for 2022.

Thus, the average increase of the total salary budget in 2022 compared to 2021 is 9.4%, PwC representatives said.

According to the survey, 41% of companies have revised their budgets for salaries upwards, but not enough to fully compensate for inflation.

A quarter of them have adjusted or will adjust wages with the level of inflation for all employees, and 9% have adjusted for inflation only for certain categories of employees.

The average inflation rate to which the responding companies refer when adjusting the budget is, on average, 8.2%.

However, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the inflation rate reached 14.5% in May, the highest in the last 19 years in Romania.

The most recent inflation forecast of the National Bank of Romania (BNR) for the end of this year is 12.5%.

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