As every year, INSEE publishes its figures relating to the salaries of the French, which it puts into perspective with inflation and the structure of employment. For the year 2021, the average net monthly salary in the private sector was 2,524 euros, notes BFMTV. A slight increase compared to the previous year, but which was not enough to offset that of the cost of living: thus, as INSEE explains in its report, “taking into account inflation, from 1. 6% in 2021, the average net full-time equivalent salary fell by 1.3% over one year in constant euros. This decline follows the strong increase in 2020 (3.2%). »
The average salary of the French therefore increased in the midst of a health crisis, before falling when the situation improved. While this observation may seem surprising, it contains another reality: at the start of the pandemic, it was in the lowest paid professions that the majority of job destruction took place. It is also in these trades at the bottom of the wage scale that the use of partial unemployment, which is not counted in these figures, was the most massive. As a result, average wages were pulled up in 2020, then down again when activity in the lowest-paying sectors resumed in 2021.
If we want to get a fairer idea of ??salaries in the French private sector, it is therefore better to look at the evolution of the median salary: in 2021, half of private sector employees earned more than 2,012 euros net monthly, while the the other half earned less than 2,012 euros. In 2020, the median salary was 2,005 euros. In 2019, it was 1,940 euros. The increase between 2020 and 2021 has therefore been minimal, especially in view of inflation.
We should add that the large gap between average salary and median salary indicates that salaries are concentrated at the bottom of the scale. Thus, 80% of net monthly salaries are between the minimum wage (1,258 euros at the end of 2021) and 3,200 euros.
