2024-07-28 12:58:30
The salary data for each work sector and their qualitative utilization, as well as the time period in which each calculation will be made from now on, are the main parameters that the Commission has undertaken to record, from which the salary change index will be derived. An index that will be “responsible”, from 2025 onwards, for the increases that will be given to pensions but also for the amount of insurance contributions that will be paid by the unemployed insured.
The collaboration for the definitive creation of the specific index is inter-ministerial (Ministry of Labor and Finance), with the assistance of ELSTAT, but also using data from the ERGANI system. The relevant Committee should have arrived at this indicator for the first time, no later than December 15 of this year.
The Committee tasked with creating the specific index should clarify specific parameters, based on which the necessary determination will be made, henceforth. These parameters are as follows:
- Index quality control.
- Creating a reliable source from which to draw any data necessary to determine the index.
- Payroll data that should exist by job sector. In addition, the working hours per employee must be recorded.
- Time basis for calculating the wage index.
- Mapping of all the categories to which the wage index will be applied, in relation to the data that can be drawn from the labor market. Adjustment It is estimated by social security experts that, in periods when wages in the private sector will move upwards, this will also have a positive effect on the wage index, which will be adjusted from year to year.
So, in order for pensions to continue to increase and the problem called “personal difference” to disappear for all pensioners, wages in the labor market will have to increase from now on. It is pointed out that 2025 will be the first year that the salary index model will be applied to determine increases in pensions as well as insurance contributions to unemployed insured persons.
In the two years 2023 – 2024, any corresponding increases came from the changes recorded in the annual inflation (Consumer Price Index), combined with the country’s growth rate. But in the new year, pension increases will no longer depend on inflation and the country’s growth rate, as a new size will be created, which is estimated to more accurately describe the picture of the country’s labor market, in terms of the wage field .
The procedure with the salary index has been institutionalized since 2019, but the implementation was “frozen” during the two years of the pandemic, only to come back to the fore now.
The limit that has been set is 2002, in order to control pension increases. The data up to 2024 has been derived in relation to the Consumer Price Index and the growth rate. From 2025 onwards, however, the new data that will be recorded and lead to increases will depend on the wage index. In any case, the interventions that will be made in the pensions will only concern their compensatory part. Any increases given in relation to the wage index will be limited there. However, the Financial Staff already knows that, regardless of the percentage of increases that will be given to pensions in the new year, there are approximately 750,000 pensioners who are in a “personal difference”.
This means that the pension they receive is higher than the one that resulted, after its recalculation (accounting). Thus, for the third year in a row, pensioners in this category will see no practical increase in their income. Simply, the increase given will cause an accounting reduction in their “personal difference”. Once the “personal difference” is zero, then pensioners in this category will be able to receive a real increase in their pensions, and thus in their monthly income. That is why these retirees are already scheduled to receive a special “personal difference” allowance, which will somewhat limit the annual loss they will have in 2025.