Do you earn more or less than your European Union counterparts? Eurostat regularly publishes data for all countries, and the 2023 figures are now all available.
A Bulgarian earns six times less than a Luxembourger
The result is big gaps: between the first and last in the “ranking”, a factor of… six! Thus, the “gross average annual salary” (for full time, excluding employer contributions) exceeds 81,000 euros in Luxembourg, while it does not exceed 13,500 euros in Bulgaria.
And France? It is quite clearly above the 37,863 euros of the Union average, with 42,662 euros per year.
Smaller gaps with “real” purchasing power
So much for the “nominal” numbers. Still, as the second tab of the chart shows, the cost of living varies greatly from one country to another – particularly when it comes to housing, one of the main expenses for European households. But Eurostat makes it possible to obtain for each country a so-called “purchasing power parity” salary, which “overwhelms” these differences. In other words, by “adjusting” the salary to real purchasing power.
This ranking, logically, “improves” the position of countries where life is cheap, and disadvantages those where the cost of living is high.
Germany still ahead of France
But without upsetting the order of countries: thus, Luxembourg remains first… but loses almost 30,000 euros per year when we take into account a very expensive living environment! France, for its part, gained two places and remains slightly above the European Union average, with 39,110 euros. Or ahead of the Scandinavian countries (Sweden and Finland, Norway not being a member of the EU) which suffer from a high cost of living. Some countries, such as Romania, have gained almost 10 places, due to a low cost of living.
Germany remains ahead of France in both cases, less “penalized” by the cost of housing and with higher salaries.
Overall, the differences are narrowing significantly: a factor of 2.5 between the last (Greece, a little over 20,500 euros) and Luxembourg (a little over 53,000 euros).
For most countries, the place varies little: the top 6 remains made up of Luxembourg, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Germany, and Ireland in both cases – in one order different depending on whether or not real purchasing power is taken into account.
Strong increases among the lowest paid
Other data published in recent days: salary changes recorded between 2022 and 2023. And there, the ranking is almost reversed: with the notable exception of Belgium (+9%), the countries where salaries are the lowest occupy the top 10, with increases reaching… 18% in one year in Romania!
On the other hand, countries where salaries were already the highest recorded the lowest average salary increases. The Swedes even suffered a drop… of 4%, the only negative change in the ranking.
Another notable exception: Greece (Cyprus to a lesser extent), which only saw an average increase of 4% and yet appears at the bottom of the salary rankings. In France, the average increase recorded between 2022 and 2023 was 5%, a little less than the EU average (6%).
France
