Austrian workers’ incomes have risen at about the same level in recent decades. Between 2004 and 2023, salaries of employees increased nominally by an average of 2.5 percent per year, and those of white-collar workers by 2.6 percent, according to the Court of Audit’s income report published on Thursday. In real terms, ie adjusted for inflation, there have been losses recently, especially among low earners.
If you look at gross median income, civil servants have recently earned better than white-collar and blue-collar workers, but the growth curve here has been weaker in recent years at an average of 2.3 percent.
Divide between blue-collar and white-collar workers
Although the development of the salaries of white-collar and blue-collar workers is nominally comparable, there is a gap between these groups in absolute figures. The average gross annual income of employees in 2023 was 26,426 euros, while employees earned significantly more at 40,160 euros.
Comparison between men and women
The gap between men and women has hardly changed recently. Although the median income of working women has developed relatively more strongly than that of men over the years, overall this has not led to any significant change in the relative income situation. To clarify: in 1998, women’s gross annual income was 60.6 percent of men’s average income. This value has only increased to 66.4 percent in 2023.
What also emerges from the report: higher incomes generally rose more than lower ones. This is especially evident for the 10 percent of the lowest gross incomes, which have increased by a nominal 42 percent since 1998, while the 10 percent of the highest incomes have seen an increase of as much as 82 percent. In general, the Court has also identified counter trends since 2015, including through collective labor agreement increases in minimum wages from 2017.
The Court also noted that in the past there have been real losses among the lowest income earners, i.e. inflation has not been offset by wage increases.
What has changed since 1998
This becomes especially clear if you take the gross median income from 1998 as a starting point: in 2023, only 78 percent of the then income level was achieved. In the income category, which is exceeded by 10 percent of recipients, the value was slightly higher than in 1998. Since then, inflation has been compensated for this group. On average, there was a slight decline in income compared to 1998, although the real loss was not nearly as great as for people with a low income.
How good the salary is also depends greatly on the industry. Employees earned the highest gross annual income last year in the energy supply sector (66,292 euros), in the financial and insurance sector (55,402 euros) and in the information and communications sector (52,469 euros). By far the lowest incomes are in the catering sector (15,166 euros). The median incomes in the field of arts, entertainment and recreation were also low (19,520 euros).
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
