German wages will rise strongly in 2011 due to several factors including a continued decline in unemployment, Labour Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in a newspaper interview released on Sunday. "I'm firmly convinced that wages will rise considerably this year," von der Leyen told the Saarbruecker Zeitung newspaper ahead of publication on Monday.
"For this reason alone, they'll rise because there are fewer workers available," she said, referring to Germany's growing shortage of skilled labour.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle have called for bigger pay rises for workers in 2011 after unions accepted modest increases in recent years as the country battled with recession.
The government has no direct influence on wages, which are agreed by employers and unions. But the comments from political leaders represent a certain break from tradition because they have usually refrained from expressing any opinion on wage talks.
Negotiated wages rose by an annual 2.6 percent on average in Germany in 2009, which amounted to a 2.2 percent real increase after factoring in inflation.
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