News from Berlin

Germany’s Average Hourly Labor Costs Ranked 7th Highest Among EU Countries

May 13th, 2014
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News from Berlin - The German economy continues its positive path in comparison to the average of its EU counterpart Member States. Thus, according to the last report published by the German Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) on Monday, the German private employers in the country paid on average 34 percent more per hour to its employees than the EU average.

These figures show that Germany has the seventh highest rate among the 28 EU countries, but still there is a big gap in the hourly labor costs compared to Member States such as Sweden, Belgium or Denmark which occupy the three leading positions, with 43, 41.2 and 39.8 Euros paid per hour worked respectively. However, the figures also show that Germany is progressively catching up with the hourly wages paid by Finnish and Dutch employers to its subordinates, with both countries accounting for 31.7 and 32.5 euros per hour worked respectively.

The recently-released data has been welcomed by members of the political class and economists in the country. The figures have been regarded as positive principally due to the law of inflation and the recent wage rate and collective agreements made between German workers and their employers, which in turn could bring about the country’s biggest annual wage rise since the year 1992.

News from Berlin – Berlin Global