“Inflation in the accumulated eight months of the year reached 7.74% and stands at 9.53% in annualized terms. Even being optimistic and assuming that inflation can moderate in the remainder of the year, with just four months left until the end of 2022, and it is difficult to assume that price growth will be below 8.5% at the end of the year, being more likely to close around 9%.
The Average Salary Index (IMS), for its part, has accumulated a variation of 8.32% in the first seven months of this year and 9.53% in the last 12 months. Five months of the year remain for the annual closure of this indicator, where it is not expected that there will be a significant variation in this index, given that salary adjustments are strongly concentrated in January and July.
Based on the foregoing, we can affirm that if there is no reduction in inflation in the last part of the year or if there is a drop in it, but it is of a small magnitude, we will close the year with a “tie” between the average wage and inflation, or a difference of a few tenths between one variable and another. This implies a new year without growth in the purchasing power of wages.
It should be noted that we are coming from two consecutive years of salary deterioration, a period in which the average real salary has fallen by around 4% compared to its level in 2019. As long as the recovery does not begin, the loss of purchasing power of workers will keep accumulating.”
