Planning Global Compensation Budgets for 2026
Planning Global Compensation Budgets for 2026 - August 2025 - SE cover

Inside This White Paper

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Outlook
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released updated international statistics on unemployment, gross domestic product (GDP), and consumer prices for 2025 and 2026. The IMF’s latest outlook highlights that, while inflation remains on a downward path globally, rising trade tensions and elevated policy uncertainty are weighing on growth expectations.
Projected 2026 Increases

An analysis of projections of 2026 salary trends across 71 countries was conducted to support businesses in the process of salary increase budgeting. A full table of the results is available in ERI SalaryExpert’s Salary Increase Survey & Forecast.

Conclusions

The global economic outlook for 2025 and 2026 reflects a landscape shaped by easing inflation trends, though clouded by continued policy uncertainty and rising trade tensions. 

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Compensation Data from SalaryExpert

We have salary information and cost of living data for thousands of job titles and locations around the world.
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About SalaryExpert

SalaryExpert, powered by ERI, was launched in 2000 with a mission to provide employers, human resource professionals, and job seekers with compensation data. Backed by over 35 years of verified and reliable salary data, SalaryExpert draws on ERI’s expertise in salary and cost of living data to provide the public with excellent tools for evaluating career, relocation, compensation, and education decisions. We want to make your compensation planning and career evaluation easier with access to salary survey data for more than 10,500+ locations, 1,100+ industries, and 39,600+ jobs including 1,800+ executive positions.
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Our Process

Data are gathered from 3 sources: surveys we conduct, surveys purchased from other organizations, and reports from publicly traded organizations.

SalaryExpert conducts advanced analytics to accurately capture the market value of each occupation in our salary survey database

Explore SalaryExpert’s wage, salary, and compensation databases of over 11,000 job titles, 1,100 industries, and 8,500 locations.

After compiling the data, we conduct QA to ensure data are of the highest quality.

SalaryExpert analysts double-check the results for each job every quarter.

Data Collection

Data are gathered from 3 sources: surveys we conduct, surveys purchased from other organizations, and reports from publicly traded organizations.

Data Verification

After compiling the data, we conduct QA to ensure data is vetted, verefied, and of the highest quality.

Analysis

SalaryExpert conducts advanced analytics to accurately capture the full scope of each occupation in our salary survey database.

Quality Assurance

SalaryExpert analysts double-check the results for each job every quarter. Our verified salary survey information helps set the benchmark pay.

SalaryExpert Results

Explore SalaryExpert’s wage, salary, and compensation databases of over 11,000 job titles, 1,100 industries, and 8,500 locations.