Wage growth still below inflation

Many low-income and unskilled workers in the agriculture, industrial and service sectors of Bangladesh are being forced to reduce consumption as higher inflationary pressure is eating away their real income.

According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), inflation has outpaced wage growth in the country for more than two and a half years now.

The wages of low-income and unskilled workers across 63 employment categories grew by an average of 8.01 percent in September while the inflation rate was 9.92 percent, shows the Wage Rate Index of the BBS.

The situation was even worse in August as the inflation rate stood at 10.49 percent, thereby exceeding wage growth by 2.53 percentage points in a trend that has been continuing for the past 32 months.

The data also indicates that earning levels across all three of the economic sectors registered month-on-month growth of less than 1 percentage point in September.

Wage growth in the industrial sector was 7.61 percent that month, up by 0.07 percentage points from August, while that of the agriculture sector increased by 0.03 percentage points to 8.28 percent.

Likewise, wage growth in the service sector advanced by 0.05 percentage points to 8.29 percent.