These are the wage winners of recent years – and these are the losers

Many Germans might currently wish their salaries had developed over the past nine years like those of fashion designers. From 2014 to 2022, gross wages in the industry increased by more than half on average. Animal keepers and plumbers also earn significantly more today than they did back then (around a third each). Waiters, cooks and paramedics (about a quarter each) are also among the wage winners.

Bad news for couriers

The losers include postmen and delivery people in particular: In 2022 they earned only 1.8 percent more than in 2014 – by far the worst value. This is also due to the fact that smaller suppliers have only been included in the statistics since 2018. Their lower wages offset increases at larger companies.

Tilers, tourism merchants and paint/varnish technicians are also at the bottom of the table, but with a wage increase of nine to ten percent, they are well ahead of the delivery staff.

Most of the other occupational groups are close together in the middle, mostly with increases of ten to 20 percent. That corresponds to an annual salary increase of one to two percent: Richter (21 percent); Teachers, public sector employees and bus/truck drivers (20 percent each) and hairdressers, computer scientists and secretaries (17 percent each) differ only slightly. Doctors, bricklayers and cashiers (15 percent each) as well as warehouse clerks, roofers and image/sound technicians follow slightly behind.

Wage increases mostly above inflation

The comparison with inflation is interesting: the record price increases of the past few months eat up a lot of disposable income. In previous years, however, inflation remained below wage increases for most job groups. Those who earn 20 percent more today than in 2014 can now afford more than they did then.

Past winners do not necessarily mean future winners

An evaluation by Bild with the evaluation platform kununu and the training portal AUBI-plus shows that fashion designers will not again be the wage winners in ten years. When it comes to training occupations, experts believe that technical occupations in particular have good prospects for the future: IT specialists, clerks for digitization management and electronics technicians for energy and building technology benefit from digitization, AI and renewable energies.

Travel agency employees, insurance brokers and post and parcel carriers, on the other hand, suffer from competition from online offers and drones. Salary prospects uncertain.