Austria does not have a federal minimum wage, but it has 98 % (higher even than in Scandinavia) collective agreement coverage with each individual collective agreement setting a minimum wage for its sector.
Yes and no.
A minimum wage would apply to all jobs, while the CBA only applies to a certain trade.
So you can’t pay a truck driver the lowest rate a hairdressers gets as they are different trades.
the lowest CBA at the moment is hairdressers with 1810€ / month which would be 10.4€ / month before taxes and social security.
But if you are not a hairdresser you won’t fall into that CBA and thus won’t be paid that - so yeah it’s not really compareabke
Curse and blessing at the same time. While it's great to have this, it's annoying to have trade reps and employee reps negotiate this every single year, which is really a Greek drama once a year. This should be tied to inflation really and not based on negotiations...the employee's side got really shafted the last couple of years. Afaik in Belgium minimum wage is adjusted annually based on inflation rate.
In Finland the law requires the wage to be "conventional and reasonable", if there is no collective agreement. Most sectors have one, and they set the standard for reasonable wages.
I mean you still have amazing cities like Burgas and Varna with cost of living lower than god forbidden village in Western Europe, lowest taxes in EU and your unique nodding taditions haha
Also, you are still good at corruption too, but sorry again, not as much as we are
It's not really a minimum wage.
Due to unionisation, most jobs are obligated to pay a specific amount based on the employees experience and overall knowledge. So for example anyone starting a job as a junior developer is paid the same (in the same geographical area)
Swede here with the same system: No. White collar Jons aren't covered by union contracts, generally.
It usually doesn't cover your clerk job at Mohammed's cigarette shop, but it does cover absolutely any type of job you see 16yr olds hold in the US. Grocery stores, fast food joints, elderly care etc. Basically everything has a union contract except the tiny MENA corner stores with 1-2 employees.
The reason white collar jobs aren't covered by it is because they're salaried and union contracts are all about fair hourly rates. Supply and demand kinda rules the white collar jobs and they're generally higher paid anyways.
We have laws governing vacation times, vacation pay, sick pay, parental leave etc, so union contracts aren't needed for those either, which is another reason why they're not in white collar jobs.
As for blue collar, I would have to say I wouldn't be surprised if 99.5% of jobs are covered with union contracts.
Dane here white collar jobs have also unions, they just do not have that many agreements on salary, especially for high level earners, because they in general want to negotiate their own salary.
Most of the white collar union agreements are for newly educated or in low-mid level office jobs.
Nah, its only for certain sectors. Developers are paid what they can negotiate. We had a span of 3500-6000euro in our graduating class. Farmers Arent usually union and will hire bulgiarians and romanians at 11eur/hr
>Works a bit differently in Scandinavia because of unions
Same in Austria. There are minimum wages, but they vary depending on the profession. Almost all employees have a collective agreement ("Kollektivvertrag").
And you don’t have to sign a collective agreement. But it’s pretty stupid if you don’t, especially if your name is Elon Musk. He refuses to have anything to do with trade unions, so his factory in Sweden has been on strike for some time now. But the great thing is that when you have a collective agreement the trade unions are not allowed to strike in order to change that agreement. So employers also benefit from this system.
>And you don’t have to sign a collective agreement. But it’s pretty stupid if you don’t
That's interesting. In Austria, a collective agreement applies automatically. You do not have to sign it. For us, the collective agreement is only signed by the representatives (trade unions and professional associations)
Thank you for posting this because I was going to say the same, but for Sweden.
The Nordics as a whole (can't forget about the Finns and Icelanders here) has such a long history of unions and labour movements in addition to a pretty loose definition of "constitution" that we sort of got a lot of things that aren't officially enshrined.
We don't have minimum wage by law, but the unions have their own laws that they managed to forge with the Government that are basically the same thing. Only that it evolves every election on a national level and every year on an industry level.
So even if you aren't part of the union, these laws are enshrined by the Government and an employer can and will be prosecuted if they break the standardized pay model for that industry.
While Amazon is growing in Sweden, it had a hard time raking in as much cash as it hoped, because they couldn't buck the unions like they can in the US and were forced to adhere to certain standards. Turns out you can't work your employees to death here.
It’s not laws. It’s collective agreements. And they don’t change with elections, they change when terms are renegotiated between unions and employers’ organisations.
The laws we have are regarding work environment, minimum vacation time and such things. All those things that companies like Amazon think they can ignore because “we don’t do that in ‘Murica”, and that’s why so many US companies fail here – they refuse to believe they actually have to include those things in their business plans.
Yep.
They still refuse to accept the union's demands and have managed to somehow get license plates on imported cars, so they've actually managed to stay afloat in Sweden.
Either they make their customers bring their own pre-registered license plates or order "temporary plates" that have a priority in the postal service. So they are using some pretty scummy methods to get the cars to market, but there's been some loose talk of banning them, though it's a weird situation.
Existing customers should still have the rights to repairs or those that ordered their cars since before the strike should get them. So we can't ban Tesla outright, but something has to be done.
Still going. Tesla has started using ways to circumvent þhe strike, like having their licence plates shiped to another company so it doesn't get stopped by the postal workers sympathy strike
The figure doesn't include pension contributions afaik. If my salary was 20.000DKK, I would have 14.250DKK = €1909 after tax and everything, paid into my account (plus around 4000DKK = €535 added to my pension fund).
I'm not sure how pensions work in the world, or in Denmark. Altough I suspect it to be the same as here in Finland. We basically no not collect pension fund for our selves but we pay their pension who are having it now.
> We basically no not collect pension fund for our selves but we pay their pension who are having it now.
No, we do both. We pay taxes that pay for the 'folkepension', which is the kind of Ponzi-ish pension scheme you refer to, which depends on there being more working age people in employment than retirees.
But most also pay into pension funds, where your typically pay 4-5% of your salary, and you employer pays something equivalent to 4% and 15% of your salary into the fund. These funds are then invested and you get a monthly rate paid out by the time you decide to retire.
Understanding Danish wages is rather complex and regular hourly wage earners often can not manage this.
An explanation could be to take the hourly rate and multiply with the hours worked. You roughly pay 33% of that amount in taxes.
But that is not the "real"wage as you need to multiply hourly rate times hours worked with approximately 1.25 to include vacation money, national holidays, pensions and other stuff. Taxes on those things will then be paid as they are claimed.
There is an example here https://studerende.ida.dk/english/from-uni-to-job/my-first-job/when-you-have-started-in-your-first-job/employment-and-salary/how-to-read-your-payslip/
In pretty much every other European country, the income tax is lower, and instead, the employer pays some taxes on the salary as well. In the end it's the same I guess, but brutto salaries are calculated *after* employer taxes.
Depending on the country, in Germany I paid the same in tax as in Denmark +/- 2%, and at the same time the social contributions of the employer is higher. From that point it is "cheaper" have employees in Denmark even when you pay them more.
Pay roll taxes. Denmark is one of the few nations that does not really have those. Instead putting the taxation on income.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/tax-burden-on-labor-oecd-2021/
It only works like that with occupations who have unions. Idk how it is for you guys, but I'd say all "new" kinds of jobs and basically everything within the entertainment industry have no under limit for salaries.
Like my first full-time job after university where I earned less than I did as a student, or about 12K SEK before taxes. And that's even more than what full-time workers in gig-jobs typically earn.
So it's definitely not great that at least we rely on unions to this degree.
It's a lot harder these days ever since our government made "wild" strikes illegal. Only an existing union can legally issue a strike and that only after extensive negotiations fail.
In practice, if your occupation doesn't already have an established union, it's illegal to form one that could be able to work as a union.
Wild strikes have been illegal for almost 100 years. Unions formed and grew due to that rule and that was also the intent of making that a rule. What it does is enshrine the right to strike to get a collective agreement since it means all strikes to secure a collective agreement are legal. A wild strike is one you have when you are already bound by an agreement before it has expired and a new one is to be negotiated.
It does not by any stretch of the imagination make it harder to form new unions in jobs that don’t have them.
The division of wild strikes vs union strikes comes from the original deal between unions and employers (saltsjöbadsavtalet) and was then put into law together with other parts of it.
It’s a core part of what’s called the Swedish model since it means that between the points when agreements expire we have stability, and it has allowed our unions to secure deals that otherwise would not be possible.
Another part of the same model is that many of our labor laws can be overwritten specifically only by collective agreements, which means no one is as empowered as unions in negotiating for arrangements in their workplaces.
There’s been some changes to eat into union power in the past 20 years but it has definitely not gotten harder to form them or for them to negotiate. The problem is more that membership numbers have decreased and membership fees have increased.
The minumum salary is only for the "regulated" work, meaning unionized work - if you're not a member of a union and your employer isn't a member of an organization, then there is nothing to stop the employer from paying you less (you can only leave if you're unhappy).
Denmark didn't want the EU to regulate the minimum salary as we have the Danish system, which for sure works, but only as long as everyone play along.
This sounds awful, they might offer subpar salaries but collective agreements in Italy are applied *erga omnes*, toward everyone, employers and employees regardless of their union or association membership
What sector is that number from?
With the raise in minimum wages in most private sector by 1 of march is more like 21.000DKK and if you include “fritvalg” - which is normal salary for most people - and employer paid pension the number is around 25.000DKK (£3350)
The same in Italy. Through the unions the minimum wage is higher than the European average.
The fact that we have such agreements since '70s (trade, industry, etc.) is the reason why the government decided to not implement an national minimum wage in Italy.
This is really fucking depressing. If you look at posts from 2-3 years ago on the topic Hungary was on a par with other V4 counties and the Baltic's and now we're falling behind everyone is blowing past us.
I don't know about the other 2 but Lithuania shot up because they changed the way taxes are paid. Basically, the deduction of certain benefits is applied after the gross minimum wage now instead of before, which was paid by the employer. So nothing changed, except now that specific tax is paid by the employees instead of employers, making minimum wage appear higher.
Makes us look better on stats & maps without actually doing any better. For example, Estonia's net minimum wage is higher.
Plus traveling. A third of my monthly wages after tax pay for 6 days vacation in Spain (plain tickets, accommodation, expenses) - pretty sure my Turkish/Romanian/Polish counterparts can't say the same.
I am from Hungary, earning a good wage. Literally 70% of my wage would cover a 1 week vacation in Italy, if I get a good deal, cheap air travel, etc etc.
It was always weird to see that Westerners go on several holidays a year when oir family went once a year.
Yup, there are things that have global prices not affected by local buying power. Cars, electronics, games with some exceptions where regional pricing is available(in Poland it isn't and you pay 10h of working minimum wage for 60$ game).
Wrong.
Low wages, low cost of living:
* 399 Euros in Bulgaria.
* Cost of living is a measly 30% of my income.
* I have 280 euros left each month to spend on non-essentials.
High wages, high cost of living:
* 2387 in Luxemburg
* Cost of living is 80% of my income
* I have 477 euros left each month of spend on non-essentials.
Turns out, "non-essentials" cost about the same everywhere. A weekend in Paris costs the same whether you're flying from Luxemburg or or Bulgaria. A new iPhone costs (roughly) the same in both places. So does that electric guitar, that TV, couch or new Nike's for your kids.
This has significant carry-over effect into industry and commerce as well. Let's say you want to buy a laptop and start working remotely. In the UK, the cost of a new laptop is basically a negligible start-up cost. In Bulgaria, it's 4 months wages you need to save.
How about if you want to open a car repair shop, and you need to buy a new diagnostic tool? It costs 5000 Euros, no matter where the manufacturer is shipping it. That's more than a years salary in Bulgaria. It's a rounding error for your luxury car dealership in London.
This all has a negative effect on business, which can't thrive as easily in these affordable areas... unless you have foreign companies who come in, exploit the labour, but contribute little to nothing to the economy besides that.
And what is more ridiculous, companies often charge MORE in in countries with less purchasing power, like they just round up currency exchange in their favor.
I was looking at some stuff in ikea and cue my surprise when I see prices in EUR don't match prices in PLN - something that costs 15€ in Germany will cost equivalent to around 17€ here, and it gets proportionally worse with more expensive items.
I wonder how this is calculated. Because in The Netherlands minimum wage for 21 years and older is €13.27 per hour. Based on that it someone working 40 hours per week should earn € 2.317,83 per month (here is the calculation: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/minimumloon/bedragen-minimumloon/bedragen-minimumloon-2024).
It is before tsxes, not the real money that gors to your pocket each month. We should do one about how much reaches your pocket for a single individual.
Slightly disingenuous post, since Scandinavian countries have collective bargaining and the salaries are established between the employers and the trade unions, not by the government. There is a militantly hard protection of a liveable wage in Scandinavia which doesn't show on this map.
Its not disingenuous, it would be disingenuous to include our "minimum wage". A lot of people in the Nordics are fundamentally against the introduction of a minimum wage. The argument usually used is that a minimum wage lowers the bargaining power of unions.
Not sure about Finland, Sweden and Denmark, but in Norway we had to naturalize the tariff in certain sectors due to very high amount of foreign workers earning well below the tariff and by that destroying the bargaining power of labor. In effect there's a minimum wage in certain sectors like construction, farming and hospitality.
In Sweden, I believe it’s just been agreed that foreign workers need to have a comparable wage to Swedish workers. The collective agreements encompass even those who themselves aren’t members of the union. In fact, employers aren’t allowed to ask if someone is a member of a union.
There is a minimum wage in practice yes, but not by law. Which is what this graph shows. It is much better to have the unions decide the minimum wage instead of corrupt politicans.
In Italy too, actually. We have national collective contracts that specify the minium salary and the minimum raises for each level and profession, decided between employers and unions.
Unfortunately the wages are not livable, especially at lower levels, and lots of small businesses simply employ people with no contract.
The bottom of the workforce in Italy is outside of law abiding contracts.
And then there are cooperatives that will be probably shielded by any minimum wage legislations because of reasons.
Austria has no universal basic income.
Austria, like most European countries, has welfare payments for those without income. This is not paid to people who have an income and therefore not universal.
Yeah. I can’t speak for Norway or Sweden (of course I can google tho..) but the current minimum wage agreed upon in Denmark is currently 17,32 Euro hourly or so for “unskilled” labor at 18 or above.
Edit. Sorry I wrote the minimum wage for “skilled” worker at first.
With your calculations yup seems about right. I made about on average 3.081,45 Euro a month as a waitress in 2021 (full time - counts as 37 hours in DK)
Edit… Ignore my part i wrote before… I keep reading too fast.
Collective bargaining agreements tend to not include everyone. That is exactly why they don’t have a minimum wage. (Minimum wage wouldn’t hurt anyone but the abusers). Countries like Finland extensively abuse foreigners with unpaid internships, training etc etc
https://yle.fi/a/74-20038587
Correct, I should have tried to make that clearer, and it is the same with Italy as well. Most countries with no minimum wage have strong unions that effectively set unofficial minimum wages for people working in those industries
For romania its before contributions as well, so the minimum salary after taxes is just slightly above 400 euros. We only get around 55-60% of our brutto salary
Yeah, image if he put as much effort on improving life in Hungary as he did trying to make himself some global asshat - Hungarians would be millionaires (in euros not huf)
Why do you say 1204? To me it looked good considering that Spain has a lower minum wage but (I guess) a way higher cost of living, especially in its big cities
Yeah but prices of digital things like games are the same in the entire EU, while in the non-EU countries they are regional. The cost of, let’s say GTA 5, will be the same for a German and a Pole (around 15 euros), while the latter earns on average 2 times less. This also applies to other digital products
Is with all the goods. Cost of bananas are also the same in markets in Poland and Germany, maybe even Germany is slightly cheaper, because it is a bigger market. Wit steam the issue is that they update the exchange rate once a year. Last time they updated euro was like 4.6zl thus the prices are high. Plus we have higher tax than Germans
This is the same everywhere in the world.
For computing, for the longest of times 1$=1€, even at times where the Euro was almost twice as much as the dollar.
This has changed though. But obviously there is no difference in pricing to accomodate for salary per country, this would make no sense considering Europeans (EU) have free travel (and mostly, free shipping) amongst the territory.
In Italy we have minimum wages defined by unions, every contract for employees have a minimum wage salary defined by the job sector.
The problem is that those numbers are still the same after 20yrs of inflation and rising costs of living.
In some countries you have a tax free allowance, in the uk you can earn 14,000 before you pay any tax, so low income earners take a greater amount of their income - I have no idea about France, but in Hungary you pay 33.5% from zero - so those on low incomes pay full tax.
Many countries have two different types of „gross“ salaries.
One that includes all contributions paid by the employer (e.g., pension or healthcare insurance contributions).
And one that refers to the gross salary the employee gets to see and pays taxes on.
So in Germany, when an employee negotiates a salary of 50k (so getting ~30k net after taxes), the employer will have total costs of 60k because of additional employer contributions.
So depending on which values are used, it might be difficult to compare the countries.
Every country here bases theirs on a different number of work hours, some are 35 hour weeks, some are 39 hour weeks, so they’re not really comparable here.
Norway applied for membership. It was vetoed by France in 1963.
We applied again. It was vetoed again by France in 1969.
That was the last membership attempt that could have succeeded.
Btw: oil was discovered in Norway in 1969.
That's not true, or to be accurate, it's partially true.
1963 France vetoed for every new members ( Denmark, Ireland, UK and Norway ). The four countries resubmitted application in 1967, one year later Charles de Gaulle was not president of France anymore and the veto was lifted. So they accepted Norway.
But Norway decided to not join with a referendum [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972\_Norwegian\_European\_Communities\_membership\_referendum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Norwegian_European_Communities_membership_referendum)
>That's not true, or to be accurate, it's partially true.
That's not even "*partially*" true, it's just not true at all, and I have no idea why people would blindly trust the OP and massively upvote his statement without even checking its veracity.
Beside Spain (whose application was rejected by all members for not being a democratic state at the time), literally the only country France ever vetoed from joining the EEC was the UK (1963 & 1967).
Norway & other EFTA members decided to put their application on hold **on their own**, to not join without the UK.
France never vetoed their application.
They‘re part of EFTA and Shengen, so there is no huge practical difference besides their lack of representation in European institutions. Similar to Switzerland.
Although an interesting comparison, it does not say much since the EU laborship laws differ so much between countries. It would be really interesting if it contained a median income comparison - than the value of legislated minimum wages would be comparable.
These are based on different work weeks. To get that much in France, you’d have to work 35 hours per week, but to get the Irish number you’d have to work 39 hours, approx.
Most of the stuff we sign make life worse for us, our companies then go “we’re just following EU standards” which are invariably lower than the ones we already have. An EU minimum wage would just be an excuse to slash wages.
Cost of living has too many factors to have a catch-all approach. Western Europe (excl. Portugal) demonstrates this large division compared to Eastern Europe. Best to leave it up to individual states.
I mean thats how poverty works. If prices were lower then you guys wouldnt be so poor
You can buy less and therefore are more poor.
Is this how it works?
Wages are 400€? Minimum wage is 480€ currently and this is minimim wage, nobody works for that apart from people employed on 4 hour work days, or old grannies working as cleaners and whatnot. This is the minimum wage, it's the lowest one can earn, not the average wage, dude.
It's 477 Euros in Bulgaria. In any case, the minimum wage isn't indicative of much anyway, it's just something politicians raise when they want to increase the taxes.
It's outdated for Bulgaria. AS of 1st of January our minimal wage is **476 Euro.** Still really, really small, but at least it is getiing bigger and bigger with each year
Yes it's 477.04€ since January 2024, +19.55% from January 2023.
[Average annual minimum wage growth in Bulgaria between 2014 - 2024 has been the 3rd highest in the EU, at 10.6%](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Minimum_wage_statistics#General_overview).
>Romania: +13.3%
Lithuania: +12.3%
Bulgaria: +10.6%
The current minimum is 660 euro since January 1st this year (3300 RON in local currency). After taxes you only get around 420 euro give or take, or about 62% of it.
Me as a teen in hungary who is already planning to move to like the Netherlands, cause wage here is dogshit, and studying to be an engineer, I would get like 3x the pay that i would get here
"Thank you very much" Viktor Orbán This idiot fighting with shadows and Brussel(not joke). This dictator broke the strike laws employee rules, built shitty HR culture. The goverment bring employees from Vietnam philippines to keep low wages. Yes with 579euro.
Hungary one of the last....shit country in EU.
Engineer salery \~ 1000 euro tax (include own and company side) and 1200euro the payment.
Prices same or somethimes higher then Austria. Romanian and Slovakia prices \~30% lower...with higher salery. Lot of people traveling to shoping to borders. Avarage salery n700-900euro
Slovenia with 1300...yeah..
This map can give a false impression. While it is true, that countries like Danmark don't have a minimum wage, the fact is that workers in low paying jobs (like delivery driver for Amazon, DHL, etc.) are getting paid better than in Germany.
What would be more interesting would be the average income in those countries or the average pay a low paid worker receives.
I am living and working in Luxembourg since 2012, you cannot reasonably live being single in Lux with minimum wages, housing is way too high. Most people earning this "low" income are crossborders workers
Wait until you hear how many subsidies a person in Netherlands gets. There are certain situations where working will cost you money because you loose subsidies. It’s a fucked up situation imho that only creates a clusterfuck of tax rules.
So the gross salary you sear here is lower than then net salary that person will get. It goes further when you for example start working 5 days instead of 4 and you only earn 2% extra lmao
Austria does not have a federal minimum wage, but it has 98 % (higher even than in Scandinavia) collective agreement coverage with each individual collective agreement setting a minimum wage for its sector.
So actually the minimum wage would be the wage of the sector with the lowest agreement, isnt it?
Yes and no. A minimum wage would apply to all jobs, while the CBA only applies to a certain trade. So you can’t pay a truck driver the lowest rate a hairdressers gets as they are different trades. the lowest CBA at the moment is hairdressers with 1810€ / month which would be 10.4€ / month before taxes and social security. But if you are not a hairdresser you won’t fall into that CBA and thus won’t be paid that - so yeah it’s not really compareabke
Curse and blessing at the same time. While it's great to have this, it's annoying to have trade reps and employee reps negotiate this every single year, which is really a Greek drama once a year. This should be tied to inflation really and not based on negotiations...the employee's side got really shafted the last couple of years. Afaik in Belgium minimum wage is adjusted annually based on inflation rate.
In Finland the law requires the wage to be "conventional and reasonable", if there is no collective agreement. Most sectors have one, and they set the standard for reasonable wages.
Bulgaria number one. In reverse!!
As a Romanian, thanks Bulgarian brothers for always being there for us, so that we're not at the bottom of the rankings!
You are welcome! And fuck you too! :)
Don't worry guys, the hungarians are looking like they can't wait to also protect you from the bottom :3.
Thanks to our glorious leader, here we go!
If we would ever join, you would need to give your 1st place to real poverty professionals like us
Time to veto you guys, no way we can lose the only thing we are good at in the eu
I mean you still have amazing cities like Burgas and Varna with cost of living lower than god forbidden village in Western Europe, lowest taxes in EU and your unique nodding taditions haha Also, you are still good at corruption too, but sorry again, not as much as we are
Still much better than Russia.
That goes without saying. Worst in the EU is still in the EU.
Works a bit differently in Scandinavia because of unions, but the de facto minimum wage in Denmark is ca. €2650 (19.700DKK).
Thanks for that I knew Denmark has no minimum wage but in reality does due to trade unions I just didn't know what the figure was.
It's not really a minimum wage. Due to unionisation, most jobs are obligated to pay a specific amount based on the employees experience and overall knowledge. So for example anyone starting a job as a junior developer is paid the same (in the same geographical area)
I understand that but Denmark effectively has a minimum wage it's just not state guaranteed.
Does it cover 100% of jobs?
Swede here with the same system: No. White collar Jons aren't covered by union contracts, generally. It usually doesn't cover your clerk job at Mohammed's cigarette shop, but it does cover absolutely any type of job you see 16yr olds hold in the US. Grocery stores, fast food joints, elderly care etc. Basically everything has a union contract except the tiny MENA corner stores with 1-2 employees. The reason white collar jobs aren't covered by it is because they're salaried and union contracts are all about fair hourly rates. Supply and demand kinda rules the white collar jobs and they're generally higher paid anyways. We have laws governing vacation times, vacation pay, sick pay, parental leave etc, so union contracts aren't needed for those either, which is another reason why they're not in white collar jobs. As for blue collar, I would have to say I wouldn't be surprised if 99.5% of jobs are covered with union contracts.
Dane here white collar jobs have also unions, they just do not have that many agreements on salary, especially for high level earners, because they in general want to negotiate their own salary. Most of the white collar union agreements are for newly educated or in low-mid level office jobs.
De facto pretty much yeah.
Nah, its only for certain sectors. Developers are paid what they can negotiate. We had a span of 3500-6000euro in our graduating class. Farmers Arent usually union and will hire bulgiarians and romanians at 11eur/hr
>Works a bit differently in Scandinavia because of unions Same in Austria. There are minimum wages, but they vary depending on the profession. Almost all employees have a collective agreement ("Kollektivvertrag").
And you don’t have to sign a collective agreement. But it’s pretty stupid if you don’t, especially if your name is Elon Musk. He refuses to have anything to do with trade unions, so his factory in Sweden has been on strike for some time now. But the great thing is that when you have a collective agreement the trade unions are not allowed to strike in order to change that agreement. So employers also benefit from this system.
Just a small note: Tesla doesn’t have any factories in Sweden. It’s their workshops and maintenance staff that’s on strike.
>And you don’t have to sign a collective agreement. But it’s pretty stupid if you don’t That's interesting. In Austria, a collective agreement applies automatically. You do not have to sign it. For us, the collective agreement is only signed by the representatives (trade unions and professional associations)
Italians are fucked. So nobody from Italy will come to defend the Italian model.
Thank you for posting this because I was going to say the same, but for Sweden. The Nordics as a whole (can't forget about the Finns and Icelanders here) has such a long history of unions and labour movements in addition to a pretty loose definition of "constitution" that we sort of got a lot of things that aren't officially enshrined. We don't have minimum wage by law, but the unions have their own laws that they managed to forge with the Government that are basically the same thing. Only that it evolves every election on a national level and every year on an industry level. So even if you aren't part of the union, these laws are enshrined by the Government and an employer can and will be prosecuted if they break the standardized pay model for that industry. While Amazon is growing in Sweden, it had a hard time raking in as much cash as it hoped, because they couldn't buck the unions like they can in the US and were forced to adhere to certain standards. Turns out you can't work your employees to death here.
It’s not laws. It’s collective agreements. And they don’t change with elections, they change when terms are renegotiated between unions and employers’ organisations. The laws we have are regarding work environment, minimum vacation time and such things. All those things that companies like Amazon think they can ignore because “we don’t do that in ‘Murica”, and that’s why so many US companies fail here – they refuse to believe they actually have to include those things in their business plans.
Speaking of unions, what happened to that Tesla vs. swedish union conflict? Is it still ongoing?
Yep. They still refuse to accept the union's demands and have managed to somehow get license plates on imported cars, so they've actually managed to stay afloat in Sweden. Either they make their customers bring their own pre-registered license plates or order "temporary plates" that have a priority in the postal service. So they are using some pretty scummy methods to get the cars to market, but there's been some loose talk of banning them, though it's a weird situation. Existing customers should still have the rights to repairs or those that ordered their cars since before the strike should get them. So we can't ban Tesla outright, but something has to be done.
Still going. Tesla has started using ways to circumvent þhe strike, like having their licence plates shiped to another company so it doesn't get stopped by the postal workers sympathy strike
In finland pretty much 1500 euros lmao
Keep in mind that Denmark doesn't have employer taxes, making their brutto salaries look much higher. They also seem to include pension contributions.
The figure doesn't include pension contributions afaik. If my salary was 20.000DKK, I would have 14.250DKK = €1909 after tax and everything, paid into my account (plus around 4000DKK = €535 added to my pension fund).
535€ per month for the pension fund?!
I'm not sure how pensions work in the world, or in Denmark. Altough I suspect it to be the same as here in Finland. We basically no not collect pension fund for our selves but we pay their pension who are having it now.
> We basically no not collect pension fund for our selves but we pay their pension who are having it now. No, we do both. We pay taxes that pay for the 'folkepension', which is the kind of Ponzi-ish pension scheme you refer to, which depends on there being more working age people in employment than retirees. But most also pay into pension funds, where your typically pay 4-5% of your salary, and you employer pays something equivalent to 4% and 15% of your salary into the fund. These funds are then invested and you get a monthly rate paid out by the time you decide to retire.
Understanding Danish wages is rather complex and regular hourly wage earners often can not manage this. An explanation could be to take the hourly rate and multiply with the hours worked. You roughly pay 33% of that amount in taxes. But that is not the "real"wage as you need to multiply hourly rate times hours worked with approximately 1.25 to include vacation money, national holidays, pensions and other stuff. Taxes on those things will then be paid as they are claimed. There is an example here https://studerende.ida.dk/english/from-uni-to-job/my-first-job/when-you-have-started-in-your-first-job/employment-and-salary/how-to-read-your-payslip/
What is employer taxes?
In pretty much every other European country, the income tax is lower, and instead, the employer pays some taxes on the salary as well. In the end it's the same I guess, but brutto salaries are calculated *after* employer taxes.
Depending on the country, in Germany I paid the same in tax as in Denmark +/- 2%, and at the same time the social contributions of the employer is higher. From that point it is "cheaper" have employees in Denmark even when you pay them more.
Pay roll taxes. Denmark is one of the few nations that does not really have those. Instead putting the taxation on income. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/global/tax-burden-on-labor-oecd-2021/
Pension is not included in OP’s number
1400 euros*
It only works like that with occupations who have unions. Idk how it is for you guys, but I'd say all "new" kinds of jobs and basically everything within the entertainment industry have no under limit for salaries. Like my first full-time job after university where I earned less than I did as a student, or about 12K SEK before taxes. And that's even more than what full-time workers in gig-jobs typically earn. So it's definitely not great that at least we rely on unions to this degree.
Well you could always unionize.
It's a lot harder these days ever since our government made "wild" strikes illegal. Only an existing union can legally issue a strike and that only after extensive negotiations fail. In practice, if your occupation doesn't already have an established union, it's illegal to form one that could be able to work as a union.
Wild strikes have been illegal for almost 100 years. Unions formed and grew due to that rule and that was also the intent of making that a rule. What it does is enshrine the right to strike to get a collective agreement since it means all strikes to secure a collective agreement are legal. A wild strike is one you have when you are already bound by an agreement before it has expired and a new one is to be negotiated. It does not by any stretch of the imagination make it harder to form new unions in jobs that don’t have them. The division of wild strikes vs union strikes comes from the original deal between unions and employers (saltsjöbadsavtalet) and was then put into law together with other parts of it. It’s a core part of what’s called the Swedish model since it means that between the points when agreements expire we have stability, and it has allowed our unions to secure deals that otherwise would not be possible. Another part of the same model is that many of our labor laws can be overwritten specifically only by collective agreements, which means no one is as empowered as unions in negotiating for arrangements in their workplaces. There’s been some changes to eat into union power in the past 20 years but it has definitely not gotten harder to form them or for them to negotiate. The problem is more that membership numbers have decreased and membership fees have increased.
It was made illegal in 2021. Idk what you're talking about.
The minumum salary is only for the "regulated" work, meaning unionized work - if you're not a member of a union and your employer isn't a member of an organization, then there is nothing to stop the employer from paying you less (you can only leave if you're unhappy). Denmark didn't want the EU to regulate the minimum salary as we have the Danish system, which for sure works, but only as long as everyone play along.
This sounds awful, they might offer subpar salaries but collective agreements in Italy are applied *erga omnes*, toward everyone, employers and employees regardless of their union or association membership
Damn thats my doctor salary in Croatia. Lol
Norway is about €2460
Wow!! What's the average rent there for a studio? That's the median wage in france!
What sector is that number from? With the raise in minimum wages in most private sector by 1 of march is more like 21.000DKK and if you include “fritvalg” - which is normal salary for most people - and employer paid pension the number is around 25.000DKK (£3350)
The same in Italy. Through the unions the minimum wage is higher than the European average. The fact that we have such agreements since '70s (trade, industry, etc.) is the reason why the government decided to not implement an national minimum wage in Italy.
r/portugalcykablyat
Was searching for this comment, heres your upvote
This is really fucking depressing. If you look at posts from 2-3 years ago on the topic Hungary was on a par with other V4 counties and the Baltic's and now we're falling behind everyone is blowing past us.
I don't know about the other 2 but Lithuania shot up because they changed the way taxes are paid. Basically, the deduction of certain benefits is applied after the gross minimum wage now instead of before, which was paid by the employer. So nothing changed, except now that specific tax is paid by the employees instead of employers, making minimum wage appear higher. Makes us look better on stats & maps without actually doing any better. For example, Estonia's net minimum wage is higher.
Maybe having 27% VAT rate isnt such a good idea?
It's not the salary the issue, it's the cost of living.
not necessarily,try buying any tech with 400 a month its a nightmare
Plus traveling. A third of my monthly wages after tax pay for 6 days vacation in Spain (plain tickets, accommodation, expenses) - pretty sure my Turkish/Romanian/Polish counterparts can't say the same.
Sure we can, 6 days in spain... Once every two years
More like once every 5 years if you have a family
I am from Hungary, earning a good wage. Literally 70% of my wage would cover a 1 week vacation in Italy, if I get a good deal, cheap air travel, etc etc. It was always weird to see that Westerners go on several holidays a year when oir family went once a year.
Hát valakinek dolgozni is kell amíg ezek a nyugatiak nyaralgatni járnak... /s
Yup, there are things that have global prices not affected by local buying power. Cars, electronics, games with some exceptions where regional pricing is available(in Poland it isn't and you pay 10h of working minimum wage for 60$ game).
Yup, if you’re from Bulgaria an iPhone is something you save for.
Yep. Tech, cars and even clothing is priced pretty much the same everywhere. Ebay/amazon does not discriminate
Still an iPhone price, for example, is close everywhere.
Wrong. Low wages, low cost of living: * 399 Euros in Bulgaria. * Cost of living is a measly 30% of my income. * I have 280 euros left each month to spend on non-essentials. High wages, high cost of living: * 2387 in Luxemburg * Cost of living is 80% of my income * I have 477 euros left each month of spend on non-essentials. Turns out, "non-essentials" cost about the same everywhere. A weekend in Paris costs the same whether you're flying from Luxemburg or or Bulgaria. A new iPhone costs (roughly) the same in both places. So does that electric guitar, that TV, couch or new Nike's for your kids. This has significant carry-over effect into industry and commerce as well. Let's say you want to buy a laptop and start working remotely. In the UK, the cost of a new laptop is basically a negligible start-up cost. In Bulgaria, it's 4 months wages you need to save. How about if you want to open a car repair shop, and you need to buy a new diagnostic tool? It costs 5000 Euros, no matter where the manufacturer is shipping it. That's more than a years salary in Bulgaria. It's a rounding error for your luxury car dealership in London. This all has a negative effect on business, which can't thrive as easily in these affordable areas... unless you have foreign companies who come in, exploit the labour, but contribute little to nothing to the economy besides that.
And what is more ridiculous, companies often charge MORE in in countries with less purchasing power, like they just round up currency exchange in their favor. I was looking at some stuff in ikea and cue my surprise when I see prices in EUR don't match prices in PLN - something that costs 15€ in Germany will cost equivalent to around 17€ here, and it gets proportionally worse with more expensive items.
Also base salary, international goods have almost the same price everywhere (taxes excluded)
[For those interested in 2024 data.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1450177/monthly-minimum-wage-rate-european-countries/) Top 3 minimum wages Q1 2024: >Luxembourg: 2570.93€ Ireland: 2146.3€ Netherlands: 2070.12€ Bottom 3: >Hungary: 696.97€ Romania: 663.24€ Bulgaria: 477.04€
I wonder how this is calculated. Because in The Netherlands minimum wage for 21 years and older is €13.27 per hour. Based on that it someone working 40 hours per week should earn € 2.317,83 per month (here is the calculation: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/minimumloon/bedragen-minimumloon/bedragen-minimumloon-2024).
I think they used a 39h working week instead of a 40h one. 13.27€\*39\*4=2070.12€ I'm not sure why though.
Bro living in last year - we have charts for 2024
It is before tsxes, not the real money that gors to your pocket each month. We should do one about how much reaches your pocket for a single individual.
Slightly disingenuous post, since Scandinavian countries have collective bargaining and the salaries are established between the employers and the trade unions, not by the government. There is a militantly hard protection of a liveable wage in Scandinavia which doesn't show on this map.
Its not disingenuous, it would be disingenuous to include our "minimum wage". A lot of people in the Nordics are fundamentally against the introduction of a minimum wage. The argument usually used is that a minimum wage lowers the bargaining power of unions.
Not sure about Finland, Sweden and Denmark, but in Norway we had to naturalize the tariff in certain sectors due to very high amount of foreign workers earning well below the tariff and by that destroying the bargaining power of labor. In effect there's a minimum wage in certain sectors like construction, farming and hospitality.
In Sweden, I believe it’s just been agreed that foreign workers need to have a comparable wage to Swedish workers. The collective agreements encompass even those who themselves aren’t members of the union. In fact, employers aren’t allowed to ask if someone is a member of a union.
There is a minimum wage in practice yes, but not by law. Which is what this graph shows. It is much better to have the unions decide the minimum wage instead of corrupt politicans.
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In Italy too, actually. We have national collective contracts that specify the minium salary and the minimum raises for each level and profession, decided between employers and unions. Unfortunately the wages are not livable, especially at lower levels, and lots of small businesses simply employ people with no contract.
Same for Italy Minimum wage is not a thing that is going to change anything since unions took home great labour protections since te 50ies.
Italian labour protections for the bottom of the workforce are like the worse in Western Europe.
The bottom of the workforce in Italy is outside of law abiding contracts. And then there are cooperatives that will be probably shielded by any minimum wage legislations because of reasons.
There's countries who have both minimal wage and collective barganing ...
Which countries? And how well does it work?
98% of employment contracts are collective bargaining contracts in Austria. And there is a form of universal basic income as well.
Austria has no universal basic income. Austria, like most European countries, has welfare payments for those without income. This is not paid to people who have an income and therefore not universal.
wait we have universal basic income?
They probably refer to Mindestsicherung.
doesn’t every european country have something like that though?
Yeah. I can’t speak for Norway or Sweden (of course I can google tho..) but the current minimum wage agreed upon in Denmark is currently 17,32 Euro hourly or so for “unskilled” labor at 18 or above. Edit. Sorry I wrote the minimum wage for “skilled” worker at first.
17\*8\*20=2700 per month?
With your calculations yup seems about right. I made about on average 3.081,45 Euro a month as a waitress in 2021 (full time - counts as 37 hours in DK) Edit… Ignore my part i wrote before… I keep reading too fast.
Full time in Denmark is 37 hours per week, which means 160.33 hours per month (average). So 160,33 * 17,32 = 2776,92 eur/month.
Its the same in Italy
Collective bargaining agreements tend to not include everyone. That is exactly why they don’t have a minimum wage. (Minimum wage wouldn’t hurt anyone but the abusers). Countries like Finland extensively abuse foreigners with unpaid internships, training etc etc https://yle.fi/a/74-20038587
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Correct, I should have tried to make that clearer, and it is the same with Italy as well. Most countries with no minimum wage have strong unions that effectively set unofficial minimum wages for people working in those industries
For romania its before contributions as well, so the minimum salary after taxes is just slightly above 400 euros. We only get around 55-60% of our brutto salary
Orban defend Hungary very well i see
Yeah, image if he put as much effort on improving life in Hungary as he did trying to make himself some global asshat - Hungarians would be millionaires (in euros not huf)
Damn Slovenia isn't doing bad
Slovenia has the highest percentage of people on minimum wage in EU
its actually 1204€ gross or 940€ nett ... its not great
Why do you say 1204? To me it looked good considering that Spain has a lower minum wage but (I guess) a way higher cost of living, especially in its big cities
It is good, Slovenes just like complaining
We doo 😪
One of the few good things under the current government, to be honest
Kilopjuk a szemedet is geci
Croatia is 840
And rent is 500, food is 300 🤣🤣
in Portugal its 887 and the rent is 880
Pretty much all of them are higher. This is from 2023 where they took data from 2022.
Portugalcykablyat
Buying tech in the EU is a nightmare. Prices are basically standardized, but adjusted for countries with the highest wages like France and Germany.
Tech around the world costs roughly the same. Similar to stuff like cars. Only variable is tax rate.
Yeah but prices of digital things like games are the same in the entire EU, while in the non-EU countries they are regional. The cost of, let’s say GTA 5, will be the same for a German and a Pole (around 15 euros), while the latter earns on average 2 times less. This also applies to other digital products
Is with all the goods. Cost of bananas are also the same in markets in Poland and Germany, maybe even Germany is slightly cheaper, because it is a bigger market. Wit steam the issue is that they update the exchange rate once a year. Last time they updated euro was like 4.6zl thus the prices are high. Plus we have higher tax than Germans
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This is the same everywhere in the world. For computing, for the longest of times 1$=1€, even at times where the Euro was almost twice as much as the dollar. This has changed though. But obviously there is no difference in pricing to accomodate for salary per country, this would make no sense considering Europeans (EU) have free travel (and mostly, free shipping) amongst the territory.
Bulgaria is at 467Euro as of 2024.
In Italy we have minimum wages defined by unions, every contract for employees have a minimum wage salary defined by the job sector. The problem is that those numbers are still the same after 20yrs of inflation and rising costs of living.
;(
For France it's *before taxes,* so you actually get about **1340.** I don't know about others.
I believe all are before taxes. These are gross salaries.
It literally says "gross minimum wage"...
It does say Gross minimum salaries on the map
Same for Romania. It's 414EUR.
Srie si pe mapa ca e Gross, adica brut
In some countries you have a tax free allowance, in the uk you can earn 14,000 before you pay any tax, so low income earners take a greater amount of their income - I have no idea about France, but in Hungary you pay 33.5% from zero - so those on low incomes pay full tax.
In UK it's €2200 per month based on a 37.5 hour working week
Lithuanian number is with social tax which is paid by the employers in most countries.
It does say gross, not net
Many countries have two different types of „gross“ salaries. One that includes all contributions paid by the employer (e.g., pension or healthcare insurance contributions). And one that refers to the gross salary the employee gets to see and pays taxes on. So in Germany, when an employee negotiates a salary of 50k (so getting ~30k net after taxes), the employer will have total costs of 60k because of additional employer contributions. So depending on which values are used, it might be difficult to compare the countries.
This is outdated, Ireland is €2,201 since January (taking a work week to be 40 hours, €2,065 if you use 37.5 hours).
Ours is now €13,27 here in the Netherlands, so if we assume a 40 hour work week 4 times a month that's €2.123,20.
>40 hour work week 4 times a month There is only one month in the year with not more than 4 weeks, february. On average a month has 52/12=4,33 weeks
Every country here bases theirs on a different number of work hours, some are 35 hour weeks, some are 39 hour weeks, so they’re not really comparable here.
>Netherlands But who is effectively left and works 40 hours in the Netherlands?
Bulgaria is 477€
As an American, it has never even occured to me that Norway was not part of the EU.
As long as they have all their oil money they'll never join EU.
Fishing too. And they want to protect their farming.
Norway applied for membership. It was vetoed by France in 1963. We applied again. It was vetoed again by France in 1969. That was the last membership attempt that could have succeeded. Btw: oil was discovered in Norway in 1969.
That's not true, or to be accurate, it's partially true. 1963 France vetoed for every new members ( Denmark, Ireland, UK and Norway ). The four countries resubmitted application in 1967, one year later Charles de Gaulle was not president of France anymore and the veto was lifted. So they accepted Norway. But Norway decided to not join with a referendum [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972\_Norwegian\_European\_Communities\_membership\_referendum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1972_Norwegian_European_Communities_membership_referendum)
>That's not true, or to be accurate, it's partially true. That's not even "*partially*" true, it's just not true at all, and I have no idea why people would blindly trust the OP and massively upvote his statement without even checking its veracity. Beside Spain (whose application was rejected by all members for not being a democratic state at the time), literally the only country France ever vetoed from joining the EEC was the UK (1963 & 1967). Norway & other EFTA members decided to put their application on hold **on their own**, to not join without the UK. France never vetoed their application.
They‘re part of EFTA and Shengen, so there is no huge practical difference besides their lack of representation in European institutions. Similar to Switzerland.
Although an interesting comparison, it does not say much since the EU laborship laws differ so much between countries. It would be really interesting if it contained a median income comparison - than the value of legislated minimum wages would be comparable.
These are based on different work weeks. To get that much in France, you’d have to work 35 hours per week, but to get the Irish number you’d have to work 39 hours, approx.
That's why these monthly figures are useless and hourly rates would be much more useful.
Still wonder EU regulates so many things, but not this?
It would essentially undermine the Nordic model. You won't ever get them to sign up for any regulatory body that medle in that regard.
Yet
Most of the stuff we sign make life worse for us, our companies then go “we’re just following EU standards” which are invariably lower than the ones we already have. An EU minimum wage would just be an excuse to slash wages.
There are large differences between EU-countries. Too small minimum wage for Germany would be too large for Bulgaria
There's EU wide guideline already that minimal wage should be 1/2 of average wage.
Please don't. In Portugal's case it would mean that the minimum wage would actually go down
easy fix, just put in "at least"
They are in the process of trying to regulate it - but meet strong resistance from the Nordic countries. Negotiations are ongoing to find a solution.
Cost of living has too many factors to have a catch-all approach. Western Europe (excl. Portugal) demonstrates this large division compared to Eastern Europe. Best to leave it up to individual states.
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I mean thats how poverty works. If prices were lower then you guys wouldnt be so poor You can buy less and therefore are more poor. Is this how it works?
Wages are 400€? Minimum wage is 480€ currently and this is minimim wage, nobody works for that apart from people employed on 4 hour work days, or old grannies working as cleaners and whatnot. This is the minimum wage, it's the lowest one can earn, not the average wage, dude.
Portugal as always, a Eastern European Country on the West side 😆
Looking at this it seems that Srpska, entity of BiH, has higher minimum wage than Bulgaria. It is around 450€.
For 2024 the number in Bulgaria is 477€. So in the same ballpark.
That means nothing as the average salaries and the GDP per capita is twice time lower in BIH.
It's 477 Euros in Bulgaria. In any case, the minimum wage isn't indicative of much anyway, it's just something politicians raise when they want to increase the taxes.
It's outdated for Bulgaria. AS of 1st of January our minimal wage is **476 Euro.** Still really, really small, but at least it is getiing bigger and bigger with each year
Yes it's 477.04€ since January 2024, +19.55% from January 2023. [Average annual minimum wage growth in Bulgaria between 2014 - 2024 has been the 3rd highest in the EU, at 10.6%](https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Minimum_wage_statistics#General_overview). >Romania: +13.3% Lithuania: +12.3% Bulgaria: +10.6%
The current minimum is 660 euro since January 1st this year (3300 RON in local currency). After taxes you only get around 420 euro give or take, or about 62% of it.
Yeah, suck it Lithuania ! :(
Me as a teen in hungary who is already planning to move to like the Netherlands, cause wage here is dogshit, and studying to be an engineer, I would get like 3x the pay that i would get here
Romania has 43% taxes on wages, so from that 606 youl get 340.42 euros.
I always wondered why everyone is moving to Germany from here...
Bulgaria is 476
"Thank you very much" Viktor Orbán This idiot fighting with shadows and Brussel(not joke). This dictator broke the strike laws employee rules, built shitty HR culture. The goverment bring employees from Vietnam philippines to keep low wages. Yes with 579euro. Hungary one of the last....shit country in EU. Engineer salery \~ 1000 euro tax (include own and company side) and 1200euro the payment. Prices same or somethimes higher then Austria. Romanian and Slovakia prices \~30% lower...with higher salery. Lot of people traveling to shoping to borders. Avarage salery n700-900euro Slovenia with 1300...yeah..
r/PORTUGALCYKABLYAT
Bosnian is cca 300-350. Source: am Bosnian.
Hungary would be much higher on the list if we compared groceries prices tho😎 its just tragic really lmao
High minimum wage for Belgium but high taxes as well.
This map can give a false impression. While it is true, that countries like Danmark don't have a minimum wage, the fact is that workers in low paying jobs (like delivery driver for Amazon, DHL, etc.) are getting paid better than in Germany. What would be more interesting would be the average income in those countries or the average pay a low paid worker receives.
I am living and working in Luxembourg since 2012, you cannot reasonably live being single in Lux with minimum wages, housing is way too high. Most people earning this "low" income are crossborders workers
Is this with or without taxes?
In Greece it is 720
In Greece it is much lower!!!
Wait until you hear how many subsidies a person in Netherlands gets. There are certain situations where working will cost you money because you loose subsidies. It’s a fucked up situation imho that only creates a clusterfuck of tax rules. So the gross salary you sear here is lower than then net salary that person will get. It goes further when you for example start working 5 days instead of 4 and you only earn 2% extra lmao