Healthy salary increases for IDA members

The past year has seen a nice increase in real income in both the private and public sectors. Members in the two sectors have achieved real income growth of 2.7 per cent and 2.2 per cent, respectively, from 2024 to 2025 according to IDA's salary statistics, which are published today.

The growth in real earnings in 2025 also marks a return to more normal conditions compared to 2024. And there is a good explanation for this, according to IDA's chief economist Anders Overvad.

‘Real earnings growth was exceptionally high last year. This took place against a backdrop where inflation had taken the wind out of real earnings growth the year before. That gap had to be closed, and it was. This year, we can see that we are back to more normal real earnings growth in both the private and public sectors,’ he says.

Despite the more moderate increase in real salaries, Anders Overvad points out that salary growth has been stronger than expected.

'As we entered 2025, very few people believed that salary growth would be this strong this year. Our forecast for salary growth for privately employed members was 4.7% before inflation, and salary growth ended up slightly higher at 5.0%. This is consistent with the fact that we are seeing continued high job turnover among our members,' says Anders Overvad.

'The large rounds of redundancies we have seen over the autumn have made the headlines, but they also obscure the fact that the labour market for IDA members remains strong. It is never fun to be hit by a redundancy notice, but it is our clear experience that job opportunities are good for highly educated people within STEM, and that the labour market remains strong,' he says.

Many of IDA's privately employed members work in export-oriented industries, which have been under pressure from the global uncertainty that currently characterises the world order. Despite this, Anders Overvad remains optimistic – also for the export industries.

'Although there are somewhat higher waves in the global economy now compared to a few years ago, the Danish economy is both robust and healthy, with no particular imbalances. IDA's members represent a level of expertise that continues to be in high demand. This is particularly true in IT, life sciences, green transition and the defence industry. This cocktail has overshadowed the uncertainty we are seeing in the world right now, and we expect it to have an impact on salary developments next year as well,' says Anders Overvad.