Wage agreements specify both current and future wage increases and frequently cover 1-2 years. The wage trackers reflect the average wage growth among those workers for whom agreements are already in place – the so-called coverage. This coverage is decreasing with the length of the time horizon – as the longer one looks into the future the more agreements will have run out.
The experimental wage tracker for the euro area reflects a weighted average of wage increases based on micro data on wage agreements in Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. 5.