Minimum Wage in Europe

Hello guys, how are you doing and I hope your holiday season is going well. If you have been following my blog, you would know that I just recently completed the NYSC program in Nigeria (8 months ago, not quite recent right?..lol) where you can be posted to any state within the country to serve your father land.

It is my elder sister’s turn now and it didn’t really sink in at first that she would be collecting a “meager allowance” of N19,800 monthly, (approximately US$40 following the exchange rate for naira In the parallel market) for working basically as a full time doctor. It was difficult for her to comprehend as she was used to collecting a fat salary of N150, 000 (c.US$300 during her housemanship year. Yes, I forgot to mention, my sister is almost 2 years older than I am and she is a medical doctor. Trust me, she is a genius, and I always look up to her even though she can be naughty at times. I am sure you might be wandering why I did my NYSC before her. Well, since she is c. 2 years older than me, she was 2 sets ahead of me in secondary school. Luckily for both of us, we were able to secure admission into the prestigious University Of Lagos immediately upon graduation from secondary school. She went ahead to study medicine and I got a place for Accounting even though we were both science students while in secondary school (I must confess I was doing follow-follow while in Secondary school, I should have just gone to commercial class). As I was saying, I and my sister secured admission to study Accounting and medicine respectively.

While my course required a minimum of 4 years, hers required a minimum of 6 years in the university. As a result of this, we graduated in the same year, but as a Medical Doctor, she is required to do one year of housemanship before she can go for her NYSC.

Following from the lamentations of my sister as a result of being in the same predicament I was in some 18 months ago, I decided to dig up some dirt on the average minimum wages all around the world to compare with Nigeria’s minimum wage of N18,000 (c.US$36 or Euro 32). I would be doing for 2014, 2015 and 2016 would compare with the preceding year to assess its growth rate or decline rate. Let’s start with countries in Europe.

	2014		2015			2016
Country	Euro		Euro		YOY Growth Rate	Euro		YOY Growth Rate
Belgium	1501.82		1501.82		0.00%	1501.82		0.00%
Bulgaria	174		194		11.49%	214		10.31%
Croatia	394		395		0.25%	407		3.04%
Czech republic	310		335		8.06%	360		7.46%
Estonia	355		390		9.86%	430		10.26%
France	1445.38		1457.52		0.84%	1466.62		0.62%
Germany (8.50 per hour)	–		1360			1360		0.00%
Greece	580.08		580.08		0.00%	580.08		0.00%
Hungary	322		333		3.42%	353		6.01%
Ireland	1384		1384		0.00%	1464		5.78%
Lativa	320		360		12.50%	370		2.78%
Lithuania	300		325		8.33%	350		7.69%
Luxembourg	1874.19		1922.96		2.60%	1922.96		0.00%
Malta	165.58		166.26		0.41%	168.01		1.05%
Netherlands	1485.6		1501.8		1.09%	1524.6		1.52%
Poland	390		407		4.36%	430		5.65%
Portugal	505		505		0.00%	530		4.95%
Romania	198		232		17.17%	276		18.97%
Slovakia	352		380		7.95%	405		6.58%
Slovenia	789.15		790.73		0.20%	790.73		0.00%
Spain	645.3		648.6		0.51%	655.6		1.08%
United Kingdom	1376		1408		2.33%	1520		7.95%

As you can see from the above, Nigeria’s minimum wage is nothing compared to that of countries in Europe. The lowest figure for the past three years from the above is 174 euros (Bulgaria in 2014), which is 5.5x that of Nigeria while the highest figure for the past three years is 1922.96 (Luxembourg in 2015 and 2016) 60x that of Nigeria.

Note: Germany, Ireland and United Kingdom’s minimum wage rate is per hour, and a monthly figure was arrived at by multiplying the figure with an assumed 40 working hours per week. Also, there are no general statutory minimum wages for the remaining 6 EU member countries, Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Sweeden as their minimum wages are set under Collective Bargaining Agreements.