Salaries will continue to grow, although not at the high rate that was observed during the sharp jump in inflation, financier and professor at UNSS Assoc. Emil Hersev said in an interview for BTA. He commented on the declaration of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria (AIKB), which requested that pensions and salaries be frozen from 2025 as a measure against the uncontrolled growth of budget expenditures and the budget deficit.
According to Hersev, this request of the employers is of the same type as the requests raised by the unions for the equalization of the working salary with that in Germany or Austria. “Wage cuts or freezes, unless we’re in a natural disaster or war situation, I don’t believe anyone is debating. Inflation affects everyone, and we all have our incomes, we need them and an increase to be able to we maintain the standard we have and it is not, thank God, as low as it is generally accepted to grieve all the time,” he said.
According to him, such a measure can only concern civil servants and the minimum wage, which is a regulator that should have been abolished a long time ago. Hersev emphasizes that salaries in the private sector are determined by the employer’s capabilities and the situation of the respective sector.
“There is a serious demand for labor in Bulgaria, because there are simply no people, and this determines a continuous increase in income, including far exceeding the growth of the gross domestic product. We compete with other countries in the same market in the European Union, and if Bulgaria and the employers here are unable to pay the relevant wages relative to the conditions and living standards in Bulgaria, the workforce will take the train, plane and other means of transport to move to more competitive parts of the general labor market,” the financier pointed out.
He is convinced that salaries will grow and no one will be able to freeze them, especially to support such a request before parliamentary elections.
“Inflation is still there. Prices are rising and with the same incomes we are getting less consumption, so incomes have to rise to maintain the standard. That is why I argue that it is impossible for anyone to make it their business to freeze wages,” Hersev pointed out.
He recalled that over the past 10 years wages have been increasing continuously, including at double-digit rates of more than 10 percent per year. According to him, wages will continue to rise in our country, while at the same time they are falling in most EU countries.
“Average wages in almost all EU countries are decreasing. Forecasts for Germany, for example, are for a decrease by more or less the same percentage next year as wages will increase in Bulgaria. This year we have a minimal, but still, excess of 57 000 people who returned to the country compared to those who left permanently, and next year we will have a doubling of this number, because here wages are increasing, and in Europe they are decreasing. This has its own explanation and it is called recession, which is available in the majority of the EU, but we do not have it due to the low development of the economy. We are far from the potential of the Bulgarian economy, but the countries that have exhausted this potential are entering a recession,” explained the financier.
About the presented framework of the state budget for the next year by the acting Minister of Finance Lyudmila Petkova. he commented that whatever the outcome of the election, this government will not implement this budget and therefore be held accountable. According to him, we will have a serious budget draft when we have a government that will implement the financial law.