Salaries, Milan continues to reign. But the burden of confinement falls entirely on the workers.

Milan is still the queen of wages in Italy, even in the Covid year, but the wage prospects ofEmployment prices observatory opens up a serious reflection on the gap that opens between the top and bottom of the payroll pyramid.

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If we take the figure of the annual global remuneration, the one that brings together the fixed and the variable part, with an average of just over 35 thousand euros, Milan has no equal in Italy. Although considering only the fixed part, of 33,867 euros, it is above all the others. But analyzing the trend of the last year and the medium term (since 2015), the picture that emerges is one of stagnation, in line with what the rest of the peninsula shows.

The variation in gross annual salaries compared to 2019 is substantially in line with the national average (-0.1% vs 0%), except for the Executives data that shows a more favorable trend (+ 4.7% vs +1 , 7% of the average). Looking back at what has happened since 2015, workers in the Lombard capital (the database refers to observations on private sector employees) lost 1%, slightly offsetting the national figure of + 1.8%. And unlike what happened in the national territory, workers (-2.5%) fared worse than managers (+ 0.5%).

If the data generally describe a “widely predictable phenomenon,” says Federico Ferri, a senior partner at JobPricing, the articulation is “somewhat surprising: going into the details of the different categories, it is observed that the decrease in the variable portion seems have exclusively the worker component “.

If only workers who receive a variable part are taken into consideration, among workers this salary item fell by 27% in the pandemic year, while among executives it grew by 9.4%, compared to 2019, among middle managers a 4, 6% and among white-collar workers it fell by 1.7%. In practice, the bonuses on the upper floors were protected from closures, while the lower floors shared the costs of the closure. “One possible interpretation – explains Ferri – is that the Milanese economic fabric, more characterized by the presence of large companies, dedicated to services, and with a higher white-collar population than the rest of Italy, was somehow more capable to absorb, also thanks to the continuity of employment guaranteed by the use of smart work, the impact of the crisis ”.