The Spilindex has been exceeded again, the Federal Public Service Economy reports Thursday. As a result, civil servants will rise by two percent, just like the pensions and benefits.
To protect purchasing power, the Belgian government uses the automatic wage indexation system. If life becomes more expensive, wages, benefits and pensions also rise.
For the wages of officials, the government is based on the pivot index. If it is exceeded, the civil servants’ wages go up by two percent. The same applies to pensions and benefits. In the private sector, too, wages increase due to inflation, although that is not directly linked to the pivot index. When your wage rises, depends on the sector in which you are active.
The fact that the Spilindex has now been exceeded means that the social benefits in February and the wages of government employees will rise by 2 percent in March. A new exceeding would not be there this year according to the latest forecasts of the Federal Planning Bureau. The previous pivot decexation dates from April 2024.
4 percent
Inflation in Belgium increased in January to 4.08 percent, compared to 3.16 percent in December, Statistiekbureau Statbel reports Thursday. It is the first time since August 2023 that the threshold of 4 percent has been exceeded.
Compared to January last year, among other things, natural gas (+93.3 percent), cigarettes and roll tobacco (+27.4 percent), electricity (+26.7 percent), household services (+22.9 percent) and olive oil ( 20.5 percent) became more expensive. Striking price decreases were for mobile telephone services (-19.8 percent), computers (-17.5 percent) and televisions (-16.5 percent).
The high inflation for energy in recent months is the result of the extinguishing effect of government support for electricity and natural gas, the so -called basic package. Statbel says that will exist until February.
Mobile telephone services, hotel rooms, foreign journeys and city trips became cheaper and therefore had a lowering effect on the index figure.