According to data on labour cost levels published this week by Eurostat, Luxembourg is in second place after Denmark.
It should be noted that the statistic refers ti wage cost, not the net salary paid to the worker.
Average hourly labour costs mark significant differences between EU Member States, with the lowest hourly costs in Bulgaria (€7.0) and Romania (€8.5), and the highest in Denmark (€46.9), Luxembourg (€43.0), and Belgium (€41.6).
The two main components of labour costs are wages and salaries, and non-wage costs (e.g. employers’ social contributions). The share of non-wage costs in total labour costs for the whole economy was 24.6% in the EU and 25.1% in the Eurozone.
The lowest shares of non-wage costs were recorded in Lithuania (3.7%), Romania (4.9%), and Ireland (8.7%), while the highest were observed in Sweden (32.0%), France (31.9%), and Italy (28.3%).
© Eurostat
In 2021, compared to 2020, hourly labour costs in the total economy, expressed in euro, increased by 1.7% in the EU and by 1.2% in the Eurozone.
Within the Eurozone, hourly labour costs rose in all Member States except Italy (-1.6%) and Spain (-0.3%). The highest increases were registered in Lithuania (+12.5%), Estonia (+6.5%), Cyprus and Slovenia (both +6.2%), and Latvia (+6.1%).
In 2021, most Member States extended the validity of support schemes introduced in 2020 to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on businesses and employees. These were mainly short-term working arrangements and temporary layoffs fully or partially compensated by the government. These schemes were generally recorded as subsidies (or tax allowances).