The average Irish hourly wage is the second highest in the
EU, behind only Denmark. Eurostat calculates that the average Irish hourly rate
of pay is €20.20 per hour. While the statistics appear to point to a thriving
economy, a closer look reveals some startling realities about how wealth is
distributed in the Irish economy.
Eurostat’s data only examined the median income from firms
with more than 10 employees. This automatically strips out much of the SME
sector, while providing a disproportionate weight to large multinational firms
which can afford to pay higher wages to their employees.
Low-wage earners are defined as those employees earning
two-thirds or less of the national median gross hourly earnings. While in
Denmark the percentage of low-wage earners stands at just 8.6pc, the Irish
figure is 21.6pc - making it one of the countries with the highest proportions
of low paid workers in the EU.
Employees in the UK earn an average of €14.80 per hour,
although similarly to Ireland, the figure is likely to be inflated by
high-paying firms in the City of London that are not necessarily reflective of
the country as a whole. Britain also has one of the highest rates of low-wage
earners, with 21.3pc of workers considered to be in this bracket.
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