January the 24th, 2022 - The Croatian average salary can purchase four times less fuel than the average Swiss salary can, which is unlikely to come as much of a shock to anyone. Now that the Swiss labour market is fully open to Croatian nationals, facts such as this one are likely to only add to further demographic issues.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, here in Croatia, 643 litres of Eurosuper 95 petrol can be purchased at its current price for the average Croatian average salary.

At the same time, the Swiss can buy 2742 litres of fuel for their average salary, the Danes can buy 2150, the Norwegians can buy 1828, and the Germans can buy 1706 litres. The neighbouring Italians, with a slightly lower average salary of 1,752 euros and currently the eighth most expensive fuel in all of Europe (1.77 euros per litre) can purchase one thousand litres.

When you look at the price of fuel only, Croats are currently paying for the 18th most expensive petrol from as many as 44 European countries, meaning that the country's fuel prices are among the most expensive.

A litre of petrol is the most expensive in the Netherlands, amounting to 2.11 euros, followed by Norway with a price tag of 1.92 euros, the Finns with 1.89 euros, then the Icelanders and Danes, and surprisingly the Greeks with 1.78 euros per litre of fuel.

Given that the average salary in Greece stands at roughly 1,116 euros, they can purchase less fuel than the average Croatian salary can, being able to afford just 627 litres. The Portuguese are in a similar situation, where a litre of Super 95 costs 1.71 euros, or almost 13 kuna. With their average salary of 1,110 euros, they can afford just a few more litres of fuel than the Croats - 649 litres.

The bad news for Croatia is that in 17 countries across Europe with (currently) higher fuel prices than those listed in Croatia, with the exception of Greece, significantly more litres of fuel can be bought for an average salary than for the Croatian average salary. That said, it is also old news that we're following Western European countries in terms of prices, but not in terms of overall living standards.

According to the latest data, fuel in neighbouring Serbia is only slightly cheaper than it is here in Croatia, 10.7 kuna when recalculated, and in Serbia the average salary is only 550 euros, which means that only 385 litres of Super 95 can be purchased for a typical Serbian wage. The ratio is more or less the same down south in Montenegro, while in Bosnia and Herzegovina, thanks to the slightly lower price of a litre of gasoline (1.20 euros), the situation is a little more bearable.

The Hungarians, Bulgarians and Romanians, as well as the Slovaks, can currently buy slightly less petrol for their average salaries than the Croats can.

In a total of six European countries, petrol is still below the 1 euro price limit. Apart from Russia, these are Belarus, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine, Novi list writes.

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ZAGREB, 20 May 2021 - Croatia's take-home pay in March came to HRK 7,138, rising 6.3% on the year in the nominal terms and five percent in the real terms, according to the data released by the national statistical office on Thursday (DZS).

The average wage in March rose by 1.4% in the nominal terms and o.3% in the real terms in comparison to February 2021.

The DZS says on its website that "the highest average monthly paid off net earnings per person in paid employment in legal entities for March 2021 were paid off in Information service activities and amounted to 13 237 kuna, while the lowest earnings were paid off in the activity Manufacture of wearing apparel and amounted to 4 387 kuna."

Median net earnings for March 2021 amounted to 6,000 kuna, while median gross earnings amounted to 7 728 kuna. It means that half of the people employed were paid less and the other half more than this net amount.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

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Minimum wages in Europe range from 213 euros in Albania to as much as 2,142 euros in rich Luxembourg, according to Eurostat data for January 2020. Just how do Croatian salaries rank?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 10th of February, 2020, the minimum wage is legally prescribed in most European Union member states and in some other non-EU European countries, the Buka Magazin portal reports.

In countries where the minimum wage is not legally prescribed, a calculation is made according to the usual number of working hours per month.

Recent data show that the differences in the minimum wages across European countries are very large, and there are some much lower than average Croatian salaries, which are typically the subject of a great deal of discussion.

The European Union has also recognised the problem of the large difference in the minimum wage, and the European Commission launched a consultation on European minimum wages in mid-January to examine in the next few weeks whether to propose a new regulation to address this issue at the EU level.

According to Eurostat, in eight European countriesm the minimum wage exceeds a comfortable one thousand euros. Lagging behind as usual, typical minimum Croatian salaries are around 500 euros.

Luxembourg, on the other hand, has a minimum wage of 2,142 euros is followed by Ireland with a minimum wage of 1,656 euros, the Netherlands with 1,636 euros, the United Kingdom with 1,599 euros, Belgium with 1,594 euros, Germany with 1,584 euros, France with 1,539 euros and Spain with 1,050 euros.

Then follow 10 European countries in which the minimum wage is somewhere between 500 and 1,000 euros.

Namely, the minimum wage in Slovenia is 941 euros, in Malta 777 euros, Greece 758 euros, Portugal 741 euros, Poland 611 euros, Lithuania 607 euros, Estonia 584 euros, Slovakia 580 euros, the Czech Republic 575 euros and in Croatia, 546 euros.

At the very bottom of the list with a minimum wage of less than 500 euros, there are a total of seven European countries, namely Hungary with 487 euros, Romania with 466 euros, Lithuania with 430 euros, Serbia with 343 euros, Montenegro with 331 euros, Bulgaria with 312 euros and Albania with a discouraging 213 euros.

According to Eurostat, the minimum wage in Luxembourg, by far the highest in Europe, is an incredible ten times higher than in Albania.

Luxembourg has been firmly at the top of the list of European countries for years in terms of minimum wages. In this small country with a population of about 602,000, the minimum wage back in 2015 was 1,923 euros, and every year it grew regularly, until last year it exceeded the magical figure of two thousand for the very first time, more precisely, reaching 2,089 euros.

Of the EU member states, residents of Bulgaria, Romania and Latvia receive the lowest minimum wage.

Also interesting is the fact that the minimum wage in Luxembourg has increased by 219 euros in the last five years, which is higher than the current minimum wage in Albania of 213 euros.

Make sure to follow our lifestyle page for more on Croatian salaries.

As Novac/Adriano Milovan writes on the 20th of January, 2020, the average net salary in Croatia in November last year was 40 kuna, or 0.6 percent, higher than it was in October, while compared to November 2018 it increased by 269 kuna or by 4.3 percent, pointing to a stead increase in Croatian salaries, at least according to new data from the state statistics.

According to the aforementioned data, Croatian salaries continued to grow in November last year. Thus, the average gross salary in November amounted to 8877 kuna, which is nominally higher by 0.7 percent when compared to October and 4.9 percent higher than it was back in November 2018.

When wage growth is adjusted for inflation, net wages in Croatia back in November 2019 were 0.7 percent higher in real terms than they were in October, and 3.6 percent higher than they were back in November one year earlier. The same is true of gross wages: their real growth in November was 0.8 percent on a monthly basis and 4.2 percent on a yearly basis, data from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) shows.

The average hourly rate also increased, amounting to 39.13 kuna in November, which is nominally 9.4 percent more than it was back in October and 8.8 percent higher than it was in November 2018. The median wage, which is considered to be a more realistic indicator of wages in the country, was 5600 kuna in November, according to the CBS.

The increase in Croatian salaries is primarily due to the lack of manpower in many industries, which is once again the result of a poor demographic picture and of mass emigration from Croatia to more economically developed EU countries. Wage growth was also influenced by tax reforms, which left some employees with more money in their pockets.

By industry, the highest average salary in November was in air transport: in this sector, according to the CBS data, the average net salary was 11,326 kuna, while in the gross amount the average salary was 16,363 kuna. On the other hand, security guards had the lowest average wage: in November the average net wage in the sector was 4261 kuna, or 5401 kuna in the gross amount.

For more on Croatian salaries, follow our lifestyle page.