Blue collar workers seem to be improving their position on the wage ladder, while intellectuals are among the losers.

Portfolio reports a sharp increase in  worker’s wages last year. Skilled workers earn 20 percent higher wages than a year ago, which means that after two years of decreasing real wages, workers’ earnings started to increase again. In its newsletter to Válasz subscribers, Anita Élő recalls her article published in February last year where she already found that several skilled worker categories had reached the top 20 per cent in terms of earnings. Meanwhile, intellectuals paid by the state were sliding progressively nearer to the poorer layers of the population. Workers’ higher earnings are mainly due to a growing labour shortage in certain professions, while intellectuals who struggled to make ends meet included teachers, university academics and researchers, Élő remarks. This year’s first tranche of teachers’ wage increases may signal a change in this trend.