Increasing salaries

The federal department of Economics calculated that Belgian employees who work full time earn an average of 2.936 euro a month (before taxes), the report also indicates that the salaries of the executives and other 'fat cats' (38%) over the last 10 years has risen more than those of the 'working class' (23%).
In the face of the upcoming national wage negotiations, the leader of the socialist union has declared that he wants to narrow this gap in the future which will bring extra tension to these negotiations. Pieter Timmermans, chairman of the VBO takes the edge of these numbers by stating that the report is incomplete, according to Mr. Timmermans the calculations are made based upon salary before taxes and since the higher incomes pay more taxes, and therefor are inaccurate. The report also didn't mention the salary evolutions in SME's which represent the majority of the Belgian industry.


Dries De Craemer
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