The average net wage in Romania (chart) rose by 3.6% y/y in nominal terms to RON5,518 (€1,084) in January, but fell sharply by 5.5% y/y in real terms, marking the steepest decline in many years, according to data from the statistics office INS.

The drop comes after a period of strong wage expansion, with real net wages having surged by 11.1% over the two years leading up to January 2025 — a pace widely seen as unsustainable.

Amid persistent inflation, tight income policies in the budgetary sector and uncertain economic growth affecting the real sector, the real wages are not expected to rise significantly during 2026 -- with a negative impact on private consumption (which already contracted by 0.6% y/y in Q4 2025, reversing a small part of the robust 4.8% y/y advance boasted in Q4 2023).

The impact of declining real incomes is already visible in consumption data. Retail sales plunged by 9.1% y/y in January 2026 -- indicating a more cautious reaction among households than the simple drop in real wages may suggest (the expectations have deteriorated as well). Over the previous two years to January 2025, the retail sales had increased by 12.2%, broadly in line with real wage growth.

Sectoral data show a mixed picture in nominal wage dynamics. Employees in parts of the public sector — including education, healthcare and public administration — as well as in industries such as air transport, telecommunications and clothing manufacturing, recorded lower nominal net wages than a year earlier.

By contrast, workers in sectors such as tobacco processing, hospitality (HoReCa), and the manufacturing of electronic and optical equipment saw double-digit nominal wage increases, helping them better offset the impact of inflation, which stood at around 9.6% y/y during the period.