Bangladesh's wage growth negative for 3 years in a row: BBS data

The wage growth rate stood at 8.16 per cent in January, 1.78 percentage points below the inflation rate of 9.94 per cent in that month, according to the BBS wage rate index (WRI), which tracks the wages of informal workers paid daily across 63 occupations in the agriculture, industry and service sectors.

The widest gap between inflation and wage growth was in July last year, at 3.73 percentage points.

A recent report on the country by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said the number of people in Bangladesh facing high levels of acute food insecurity increased by 70 lakh to 2.36 crore in December last year, compared to 1.65 crore during the April-October period of 2024.

In January, wage growth in the agriculture sector was 8.41 per cent, up by 0.04 percentage points from December. Wage growth in the industrial sector increased by 0.03 percentage points to 7.80 per cent.

Real income reductions caused by inflationary pressure over the past two years have pushed at least 7.8 million people into poverty, including 3.8 million who are facing extreme poverty, a study by private think tank Research and Policy Integration for Development (RAPID) found. Ten million are at risk of falling below the poverty line due to continued inflationary pressures, it revealed.

However, finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed said early this week that inflation is expected to drop to a tolerable level within the next three months.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)