[size=75:p6poujkt]Sofia echo 17 March 2010

Bulgaria records highest labour cost increase in EU

Bulgaria recorded the highest annual increase in labour costs among the 27 member states of the European Union, the bloc’s statistical office Eurostat said in a report on labour costs in the fourth quarter of 2009.

According to Eurostat, hourly labour costs in the euro area rose by 2.2 per cent in the year up to the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with three per cent for the previous quarter.

In the EU27, the annual rise was 2.4 per cent up to the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with 2.9 per cent for the previous quarter.

The two main components of labour costs are wages and salaries and non-wage costs.

In the euro area, wages and salaries per hour worked grew by two per cent in the year up to the fourth quarter of 2009, and the non-wage component by 2.7 per cent, compared with 2.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent,.respectively, for the third quarter of 2009.

In the EU27, hourly wages & salaries rose by 2.2 per cent and the non-wage component by three per cent in the year up to the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with 2.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent, respectively, for the previous quarter.

The breakdown by economic activity shows that in the euro area, hourly labour costs rose by 1.4 per cent in industry, 3.7 per cent in construction and 2.4 per cent in services in the year up to the fourth quarter of 2009.

In the EU27, labour costs per hour grew by 1.9 per cent in industry, 3.1 per cent in construction and 2.5 per cent in services.

Among the EU member states for which data are available for the fourth quarter of 2009, the highest annual decreases in hourly labour costs were, according to Eurostat, in Lithuania (-10.8 per cent), Estonia (-5.8 per cent), Latvia (-5.6 per cent) and Slovenia (-3.6 per cent).

The highest annual increases were registered in Bulgaria (+11.3 per cent), Austria (+6.5 per cent), Poland (+5.7 per cent), the Czech Republic (+5.4 per cent) and Romania (+5.2 per cent).

Not mentioned in the Eurostat report, which dealt solely with the question of increases or decreases in labour costs, was that EU-wide surveys consistently show that salaries in Bulgaria are among the lowest, if not the lowest, in the EU.