Venezuela Pay Squeeze Knocks Global Wage Growth Into Perspective

(Bloomberg) -- If think your pay raise is lousy, consider the workers of Venezuela.

Parts of Latin America will see the worst hit to real wages as inflation outpaces salary growth, according to data from global human resource departments compiled by advisory firm Korn Ferry Hay Group Ltd.

In Argentina, people can expect to see a 28.5 percent headline raise wiped out by an inflation rate of 41 percent, pushing real wages down 12.5 percent, the projections show. The biggest pain comes in Venezuela, where price growth of 485 percent compares with nominal salary gains for 111 percent. Excluding Venezuela and Argentina, real wages in the region will rise 1.1 percent in 2017.

Vietnam is expected to see the biggest increase in real salaries in the world with a 7.2 percent jump. That’s more than three times the global average of 2.3 percent and almost double the average across Asia.

The estimates were compiled from data on more than 20 million workers in 25,000 organizations across more than 110 countries, comparing predicted salary increases with 2016 inflation data from the Economist Intelligence Unit.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net, Fergal O'Brien in London at fobrien@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.net, Brian Swint, Jeff Black