{"id":627524,"date":"2026-09-17T13:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627524\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T13:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T13:46:11","slug":"irish-workers-can-expect-a-pay-increase-of-just-over-3-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/627524\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish workers can expect a pay increase of just over 3% next year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-updated-redesign article-updated-redesign-\" title=\"Thursday 17 Sep 2026, 9:40 AM\">\n<p>                            LAST UPDATE<br \/>\n                            |<br \/>\n                            5 hrs ago\n                        <\/p>\n<p>WAGES ARE EXPECTED to increase by an average of 3.1% next year, according to Irish business group Ibec.<\/p>\n<p>In its annual pay and resourcing report, Ibec said that 83% of businesses are expected to increase wages in 2027, and a \u201cminimal\u201d number expect to decrease wages.<\/p>\n<p>The increase is below the rate of inflation for Irish consumers.<\/p>\n<p>Prices\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejournal.ie\/consumer-prices-august-7158397-Sep2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rose by 3.7% between August 2025 and August 2026<\/a>. If energy and unprocessed food are excluded, the overall Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew by 2.9% in the 12 months to August 2026.<\/p>\n<p>In 2026, 85% of businesses increased pay by an average of 3.5% across all sectors, according to the Ibec report.<\/p>\n<p>The business group also said that over a third of companies (35%) plan to increase their headcount in 2027, down from 37% forecasted for 2026 and 41% for 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Most new hires will be for permanent roles, rising to 92% in 2026 from 89% in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The primary drivers of increasing headcount are increased production and demand for services, business expansion into new markets, and building a future pipeline of talent.<\/p>\n<p>The research was carried out by surveying over 330 human resources professionals.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Maeve McElwee, Ibec\u2019s Executive director of employer relations, said: \u201cBasic rates of pay continue to rise steadily across all sectors and regions. While wage growth is expected to ease slightly toward 3.1% in 2027, rates remain largely determined by competition for specialised skills, productivity and business performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McElwee also said that \u201cworkforce resilience remains very strong\u201d despite a \u201ccontinued softening\u201d in headcount growth expectations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven with a slight labour market cooling, employers continue to prioritise permanent recruitment and talent development to maintain competitiveness despite ongoing global volatility,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAST UPDATE | 5 hrs ago WAGES ARE EXPECTED to increase by an average of 3.1% next year,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,113,1392,4105,61,60,12509,22122],"class_list":["post-627524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-employment","tag-ibec","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-pay","tag-wages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}