Minimum wage: the ranking of European countries

Between the first and last position there is a difference of 1.870 euros - Italy is one of the six EU countries (out of 27) not to have a minimum wage but its introduction is being evaluated in Parliament given the strong wage disparities between categories and the precariousness of some job profiles. Here are all the figures

In Italy little is said about it, but the minimum salary it is a reality in as many as 21 of the 27 Member States of the European Union. Outside the club, together with our country, there are only Denmark, Cyprus, Austria, Finland and Sweden. But be careful to consider the minimum wage as a monolithic reality in the rest of Europe, because it is not like that. Indeed, on closer inspection – as demonstrated by a recent one Eurostat report – guaranteed wage levels are far from homogeneous.

Starting from the bottom of the ranking - which takes the values of January 2021, 700 as references - there are 10 European countries where the minimum wage does not reach XNUMX euros:

Bulgaria (332 euros);
Hungary (442);
Romania (458);
Latvia (500);
Croatia (563);
Czech Republic (579);
Estonia (584);
Poland (614);
Slovakia (623);
Lithuania (642)

The median range, on the other hand, includes five countries – located mainly in the southern area of the Union – where the minimum wage is between 700 and 1.100 euros per month:

Greece (758 euros);
Portugal (776);
Malta (785);
Slovenia (1.024);
Spain (1.108)

The six remaining states all fall within Northern Europe. These are some of the EU countries where the per capita GDP is higher and the cost of living higher. Precisely the intersection of these two factors explains how it is possible to find minimum wages which in Italy would seem in line with the average wage, if not even higher. Here is the top of the rankings:

France (1.555);
Germany (1.614);
Belgium (1.626);
Holland (1.685);
Ireland (1.724);
Luxembourg (2.202)

On balance, therefore, the difference between the minimum wage recorded at the two extremes of the ranking (Luxembourg and Bulgaria) is equal to 1.870 euros.

HOW IT WORKS IN ITALY

In Italy there has been talk for years about the possibility of introducing a minimum wage, but the project has so far remained a dead letter. Moreover, the reform is also opposed by the trade unions, which with the introduction of this parameter would lose bargaining power. In our country, in fact, the minimum wage levels are established in the industry contracts negotiated by the workers' representatives with the employers. And the differences, depending on the sector, are very large: as Istat points out in a brief filed last month in the Senate Labor Committee, “in the economy as a whole, gross hourly wages vary from a minimum of 6,15 euros for agricultural workers with the lowest qualifications to a maximum of 56,85 euros for top management figures in the credit sector. The average value is equal to 14,00 euros and the median is 12,57 euros”.