ZAGREB, 20 July 2022 - For May 2022, the average monthly net earnings per person in paid employment amounted to HRK 7,690 kuna, nominally 8.2% higher and really 2.3% lower as compared to the same month last year, the Croatian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.

Month on month, this was a nominal increase of 1.9% and a real one of 0.5%.

The real decline year on year is due to the high inflation, which has exceeded10% in recent months.

Median net earnings for May 2022 amounted to HRK 6,490.

The highest average net monthly earnings for May 2022 were paid in air transport (HRK 12,202) and the lowest in security and investigation (HRK 4,905).

The average monthly gross earnings per person in paid employment for May 2022 (HRK 10,440) were nominally 9.3% higher and really 1.4% lower as compared to the same month last year. Month on month, this was a nominal increase of 1.9% and a real one of 0.5%.

The highest average monthly gross earnings per person in paid employment for May 2022 were in extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas activities, amounting to HRK 17,889, while the lowest earnings were paid in manufacture of wearing apparel activities and amounted to HRK 6,309.

For the period from January to May 2022, the average monthly net earnings per person in paid employment amounted to HRK 7,538, which represented a nominal increase of 6.6%, but a real decrease of 1.2% as compared to the same period of 2021.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

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A comparison of wage developments in the ten most important industries across the Republic of Croatia over the last four years shows that wage growth in the education sector has unfortunately been among the lowest.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 16th of August, 2019, the payroll story in Croatia is only getting more interesting as the increasingly powerful Mayor of Zagreb, Milan Bandić, is seeking an immediate increase in teacher salaries of ten percent, and an additional seven percent per year.

That, according to Mayor Bandić, would send out a strong message that education is the future of Croatia. Salaries in the public sector have begun to increase steadily since back in 2017, after a stagnation of almost ten years, but a similar trend was also observed in the private sector, which is facing a large number of workers' departures due to low salaries, Vecernji list reports.

This year, wage growth in Croatia has slowed to just two percent, averaging just a little under 6,500 kuna per month. In the last four years, the average wage in Croatian has grown by sixteen percent, with lower wages rising more due to a significant increase in the minimum wage, and better paid ones benefiting somewhat from certain tax policy alterations.

However, in general, wages in Croatia are growing more slowly than in other transition countries, but so are the overall economic developments. According to official statistics, in June 2019, education employees in Croatia received an average of 6,782 kuna, which is a system where seventy percent of employees in primary schools and more than eighty percent of employees in high schools and colleges hold a university degree, and according to some, those wages should therefore be higher.

As previously mentioned, a comparison of wage developments in the ten most important industries in Croatia over the past four years shows that wage growth in the education sector has sadly been among the lowest of all, rising by ten percent in four years, unlike the average wage in Croatia, which has somewhat more encouragingly increased by sixteen percent. Currently, salaries in education are higher than the average salary, but only by a mere five percent. The dilemma is not whether or not highly educated professors or doctors should receive higher wages, as that goes without saying, but the question is rather - how can we get there?

The answer might also include a significant reduction in public sector employment, especially in education where employment is booming even though schools across Croatia are seeing significantly fewer students enroll.

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