Brussels, 27/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On 1 January 2015, monthly minimum pay levels varied from 1 to 10 in the EU, according to figures released by the EU's statistical office, Eurostat, on Thursday 26 February.
The gap is reduced to a ratio of 1 to 4 when expressed in purchasing power standards for household consumer spending.
Twenty-two of the EU member states have a national minimum wage, which ranges from €184 a month in Bulgaria to €1,923 in Luxembourg. Eurostat divides minimum pay into three categories: - ten countries have minimum pay of under €500 a month: Bulgaria (€184), Romania (€218), Lithuania (€300), the Czech Republic (€332), Hungary (€333), Latvia (€360), Slovakia (€380), Estonia (€390), Croatia (€396) and Poland (€410); - five countries have minimum pay of between €500 and €1,000 a month: Portugal (€589), Greece (€684), Malta (€720), Spain (€757) and Slovenia (€791); - minimum pay is well above €1,000 in the other seven countries: United Kingdom (€1,379), France (€1,458), Ireland (€1,462), Germany (€1,473), Belgium and the Netherlands (both €1,502) and Luxembourg (€1,923).
Germany's minimum pay (€1,473) is higher than French minimum pay (€1,458) in absolute terms, but the hourly cost of a worker on minimum pay is lower in Germany (€8.50 an hour for a forty-hour week) than the hourly cost of a worker in France paid the minimum wage (or SMIC), which is €9.61 an hour for a thirty-five-hour week.
Monthly minimum pay has fallen in Greece from €794 in 2008 to €684. In 2015, expressed in the national currency, the minimum monthly wage has risen in every member state since 2008 apart from in Ireland, where it remained unchanged and in Greece, where it has fallen by 14%. The Greek, Spanish and Portuguese minimum wages are paid for fourteen months (two bonus months at holiday periods). Although the figure usually given is €580 a month for Greek minimum pay (which the Tsipras government wants to gradually increase to €750), Eurostat takes account of the holiday pay when it calculates the minimum wage in Greece as being €684.
The main rises in minimum pay between 2008 and 2015 were seen in Romania (+95%), Bulgaria (+64%), Slovakia (+58%) and Latvia (+57%). (Mathieu Bion)