In May, the average salary in the economy reached 5,684 net lei, plus 3.2% compared to May 2025. It is the smallest year-on-year increase for the average net salary in nominal value. If we consider inflation, which was 10.9% in May 2026 compared to May 2025, we have a real decrease in the average net salary of 7.7%, the largest decrease in the last year.Salaries no longer keep pace with price increases. The purchasing power of Romanian employees decreased for the 11th consecutive month. The average net salary reached 5,684 lei in May, down 159 lei compared to April and only 3.2% above the level of the same month last year
You might also be interested: In June we will have another decrease in real terms, considering that inflation was 10.4% and the salary increase I don’t think exceeded 3%. From July 1, we have a 6.8% increase in the minimum wage in the economy, which will lead to a higher nominal increase in wages, but I don’t think it will exceed inflation, which, even if it decreases, will still remain somewhere around 5-6%. In this crisis, if we can call it that, the good thing is that salaries have not decreased in nominal value, as in the crisis 15 years ago, 2009-2012. The problem is that at this moment the economy, which is on the edge of recession, does not have the strength to raise wages, considering that private companies are trying to keep their sales and receipts afloat (in the retail area, companies that deal directly with consumers are even experiencing declines), and the state does not have much money in the budget to raise wages. IT, which has led wage growth for the past 15 years, is not only not raising wages anymore, but has ended up laying people off given the tectonic shifts in the sector that have come with AI. Multinationals, especially the American ones, are firing people (see the case of Oracle in Romania), and Romanian companies, faced with a pressure on costs and finding projects, do not raise salaries much anymore. Before, when multinationals needed IT-ists, they raided the market and salaries increased by 10-20% immediately. Now this problem no longer arises, on the contrary, all IT companies are trying to reduce salary budgets and salaries, considering that the number of CVs is increasing. In industry, the pressure on salaries decreased, especially after investments and new projects were reduced. Unfortunately, the Romanian industry is in its fifth year of decline and there are no signs that this trend will reverse. The car industry, both the actual production of cars and the car components industry, is not hiring much anymore, rather looking for another future after the invasion of electric cars and the Chinese. In the financial industry, which is at the top of salaries, more IT professionals are hired considering the transition to a digital model, but here too, IT professionals are not paid the salaries of the IT industry. So there is no question of salary increases. In the construction sector, an important employer in the economy, the demand for people is stronger in the infrastructure area and less in the residential, logistics and office area, where projects have decreased. In retail, another important employer, the salaries in the lower area, which are linked to the minimum wage, are increasing, and the rest have kind of paused. Good thing they don’t depreciate. The sectors that are still moving are those related to oil and gas and renewable energy, where there are projects, there is money and there is a demand for employees. Those who deal and will deal with the administration of renewable energy projects need specialists, starting from simple electricians to engineers. In agriculture, wage increases, if they exist, are more given to the envelope, so they are not reflected in the statistics. In the state, the sector that has strongly increased salaries in the last 15 years, not to mention the year 2024, when the increase was no less than 23%, there is no more money for new salary increases considering the pressure to reduce the budget deficit. Even if we might see an end to the economic decline in the second part of the year, the economy, the companies do not have the strength to increase wages, especially if the incomes and actual receipts are not in surplus, and in the economy there is no longer the tense situation of the last years that was registered on the labor market, where you could not find employees or if you found them, you had to increase wages by 10-20%. For companies to be able to raise wages, the economy must come out of recession, new investment projects must appear, a new demand for employees must appear, and the feeling of crisis in the market must change. Economies and companies must obtain a higher added value to be able to increase wages, which at the moment is not really a problem.
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