Real wages in Italy will drop 0.9% this year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday. They will rise by just 0.2% next year, the OECD said. In the first quarter of 2026, Italy's real wages "grew by 1.3% year-on-year, mainly thanks to low inflation. However, they were still 6.1% lower than in the first quarter of 2021: this is the widest gap among major OECD economies," according to the OECD Employment Outlook 2026 dedicated to Italy. "The recent surge in energy prices," the Paris-based organization warns, "is again pushing up inflation and pushing down real wages. Assuming that the significant repercussions of the Middle East conflict are limited to a relatively short timeframe, real wages in Italy are projected to decline by 0.9% in 2026 and increase by onl