Luxembourg, 14/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - According to a report published by Eurostat on 12 March, in 1999 labour costs continued to show great differences between EU Member States. Thus, in Portugal, the average hourly cost was 7 euro, whereas in Germany, Denmark and Austria it was 27 euro. Other than these last three countries, the highest costs registered were in Belgium and Sweden, the lowest being in the southern countries and in Ireland. On average, labour costs were lower in the United States (17.8 euro) than in the Union of fifteen (21.5 euro), in the euro zone (22.1) and Japan (21.9). Direct costs (wage and salaries, contributions to saving schemes payable by employees) in industry and services represented 75% of total costs in the EU15 and 71.3% in the euro zone. As for social security contributions, they were, respectively, 23% of total costs in the EU15 and 25% in the euro zone, against 17.8% in the United States and 15.5% in Japan. The structure of labour costs varied strongly from one Member State to the next due to different tax, pension and social security schemes: in 1999, the share of social security contributions ranged from 6.4% in Denmark, where social protection is mainly financed through income tax, to 32.7% in Italy.