In 2020, the average hourly labour cost in the EU was 28.9EUR and the lowest hourly labor costs, expressed in EUR, were recorded in Bulgaria and Romania, according to the data published on Thursday by the European Statistics Office (Eurostat).
In 2020, the highest hourly labour costs among EU Member States, expressed in EUR, were recorded in Luxembourg (47.7 EUR), Denmark (45.7 EUR), and Belgium (40.5 EUR), and the lowest in Bulgaria (6.6 EUR), Romania (8.2 EUR) and Hungary (9.8 EUR), told Agerpres.
The highest levels recorded for Luxembourg were 7.3 times the lowest recorded for Bulgaria, while in 2016, the highest levels recorded for Denmark were 9.5 times the lowest (for Bulgaria).
Disparities are significantly smaller when hourly labour costs are expressed in purchasing power standard (PPS), a measure that accounts for price differentials across countries. In PPS, hourly labour costs range from 11.9 in Bulgaria to 36.1 in Luxembourg.