Wages in Portugal dropped for the second consecutive year, according to a study made by consultancy company Mercer, which was released on Wednesday, September 4.
According to the document, which is entitled Total Compensation Portugal 2013, the largest decrease was felt by those who had management and sales positions, with workers from these sectors registering a 4.94% and 1.48% wage drop, respectively.
In addition, 31% of Portuguese companies froze their workers’ salaries in 2013.
“Due to the fact that new workers are hired to do the same job but for lower wages, there was, for the second consecutive year, a real [wage] reduction in all groups,” according to the study.
Regarding the number of workers, most companies (65%) intend to maintain the same number of employees this year, but 18% said that they were planning to cut back on their staff.
Still, the number of companies planning to lay-off workers will decrease to 13% in 2014, according to Mercer’s estimates.
The consulting firm’s study is based on the analysis of more than 114,500 jobs in 300 companies operating in the Portuguese market, of which 56% are multinational firms, 43% are private companies and 1% are government-run companies.
