What is the average wage in Ireland?

cakeisgood · 09-09-2012 3:35am #1

I am just curious to know what is the average wage in Ireland? I read before in a newspaper (cant remember the name) that most workers here earn under 18,000 euros a year. I earn 22,000 and I struggle on this so I dont know how anyone can survive on 18,000 a year unless they are lucky enough to have a partner on a better wage or very generous relatives.

dlofnep · 09-09-2012 3:57am

About 35k a year according to this: http://www.cso.ie/quicktables/GetQuickTables.aspx?FileName=EHQ03.asp&TableName=Earnings+and+Labour+Costs&StatisticalProduct=DB_EH

There must be some serious money made at top levels to skew this, because most people are on less than 25k a year.

TheChizler · 09-09-2012 4:04am

Any idea what the median wage is? Might give a more appropriate estimate than the average.

Armin_Tamzarian · 09-09-2012 5:19am

An anonymous thread poll might help.

Gumbo · 09-09-2012 11:00am

Average industrial wage is €41,800 at present according to the CSO stats.

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2012/earnlabcosts_q22012.pdf

hognef · 09-09-2012 11:03am

dlofnep wrote: »

[...] most people are on less than 25k a year.

Do you have a source to back up that claim?

Brussels Sprout · 09-09-2012 11:07am

How is that figure even calculated. Does it include part time workers?

Reekwind · 09-09-2012 11:13am

kceire wrote: »

Average industrial wage is €41,800 at present according to the CSO stats.

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2012/earnlabcosts_q22012.pdf

What page are you getting that from?

femur61 · 09-09-2012 11:22am

Don't know if this is a reputable site.
http://www.payscale.com/research/IE/Country=Ireland/Hourly_Rate

http://www.payscale.com/research/IE/Country=Ireland/Salary

The CSO puts earnings /week at €687 and that is about €35,000/year
http://www.cso.ie/quicktables/GetQuickTables.aspx?FileName=EHQ03.asp&TableName=Earnings+and+Labour+Costs&StatisticalProduct=DB_EH

Is there an alterior motive to your question? A quick search on Google would provide you with all the information!

gozunda · 09-09-2012 11:25am

Huge disparity between public wage and private wage levels

with irish public wages being on avaerage well in excess to anything in the private sector

there are of course some exceptions within this but as a rule public sector wages are higher....and have higher rates of pension benefits etc

smcgiff · 09-09-2012 11:27am

kceire wrote: »

Average industrial wage is €41,800 at present according to the CSO stats.

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2012/earnlabcosts_q22012.pdf

In a specific industry? Doubt if it's everyone. I'd say the figure you quote would not be far off
Average household income

KindOfIrish · 09-09-2012 11:40am

kceire wrote: »

Average industrial wage is €41,800 at present according to the CSO stats.

i wonder, what industry is it? public sector and higher level management in banks? qualified accountants?

femur61 · 09-09-2012 1:09pm

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/theyre-on-the-industrial-wage-but-what-exactly-does-that-mean-3174854.html

Here it says it is €33,000/year figures provided by the CSO.

Gumbo · 09-09-2012 2:00pm

Reekwind wrote: »

What page are you getting that from?

KindOfIrish wrote: »

i wonder, what industry is it? public sector and higher level management in banks? qualified accountants?

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/average-industrial-wage-in-ireland-576846-Aug2012/

smcgiff wrote: »

In a specific industry? Doubt if it's everyone. I'd say the figure you quote would not be far off
Average household income

Note i said Average Industrial Wage.
Average Wage across all sectors from above is 35k

NakedNNettles · 09-09-2012 6:41pm

I wouldn't be so quick to dispute 41k at all.

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k the greedy pigs are slurping more than their fair share from the trough. 100k plus

This huge divide of rich and poor could leave the average figure well around the 40 mark. That doesn't make it the average salary though for the majority in this country though.

markpb · 09-09-2012 6:45pm

NakedNNettles wrote: »

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k the greedy pigs are slurping more than their fair share from the trough. 100k plus.

People are greedy pigs because they earn a good salary now? It couldn't be because they went to college, worked hard, put in long hours and are valued by their employers?

Ziphius · 09-09-2012 7:00pm

TheChizler wrote: »

Any idea what the median wage is? Might give a more appropriate estimate than the average.

Well, according to this Economist article from the vague time period of the "mid-2000s" :http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/09/income_inequality_0
The median wage in Ireland is between US$20,000 and US$25,000. This is takes purchasing power parity into account so I'm not sure how you translate this into Euro.

hognef · 09-09-2012 7:51pm

NakedNNettles wrote: »

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k [...]

Source?

Geuze · 10-09-2012 10:09am

Wage and income stats are published by the CSO.

www.cso.ie

Earnings data are here:

http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/earnings/

The most recent Earnings and Lab Costs report is here:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2012/earnlabcosts_q22012.pdf

Geuze · 10-09-2012 10:11am

Most recent data:

Average weekly earnings = 688 pw

Average hourly earnings = 22 ph

That means average yearly earnings of 35,776.

Geuze · 10-09-2012 10:14am

Note that earnings data is not the same as household income data.

Household income include all forms of income, not just earned income, and of course many households have several earners.

Household income data is provided by the HBS and SILC surveys.

HBS 2009/10
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/housing/2010/0910first.pdf

SILC 2010:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/silc/2010/silc_2010.pdf

Geuze · 10-09-2012 10:18am

HBS 2009/10 household income data:

Average gross income, incl social transfers = 1027 pw

Tax = 141 pw (=14%, low tax economy)

Average disp income = 886 pw

NB: all figures averaged across all households, not per person.

Gumbo · 10-09-2012 10:27am

ignore, totally misread the post.

spacetweek · 10-09-2012 10:49am

dlofnep wrote: »

There must be some serious money made at top levels to skew this, because most people are on less than 25k a year.

NakedNNettles wrote: »

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k the greedy pigs are slurping more than their fair share from the trough. 100k plus

It's interesting to me that there seems to be a particular age group/demographic on here. May I ask how old you guys are? And what industry you work in?

I don't know anyone who makes less than 25k. The only time that occurred briefly to me or anyone I know was when we graduated and got crappy starter salaries, but within about 6 months we were all > 25k. These are typical wages in lreland.

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

Jelle1880 · 10-09-2012 10:51am

OP: Do you own a house, or rent ?

Because when I lived in Ireland I had 20.500, and that was plenty.

Markcheese · 10-09-2012 10:59am

spacetweek wrote: »

dlofnep wrote: »

There must be some serious money made at top levels to skew this, because most people are on less than 25k a year.

NakedNNettles wrote: »

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k the greedy pigs are slurping more than their fair share from the trough. 100k plus

It's interesting to me that there seems to be a particular age group/demographic on here. May I ask how old you guys are? And what industry you work in?

I don't know anyone who makes less than 25k. The only time that occurred briefly to me or anyone I know was when we graduated and got crappy starter salaries, but within about 6 months we were all > 25k. These are typical wages in lreland.

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

And that's another reason why the country is fecked....

coolshannagh28 · 10-09-2012 11:01am

spacetweek wrote: »

dlofnep wrote: »

There must be some serious money made at top levels to skew this, because most people are on less than 25k a year.

NakedNNettles wrote: »

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k the greedy pigs are slurping more than their fair share from the trough. 100k plus

It's interesting to me that there seems to be a particular age group/demographic on here. May I ask how old you guys are? And what industry you work in?

I don't know anyone who makes less than 25k. The only time that occurred briefly to me or anyone I know was when we graduated and got crappy starter salaries, but within about 6 months we were all > 25k. These are typical wages in lreland.

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

What % of the population graduates college and enters a profession . Come down from that ivory tower !

Dannyboy83 · 10-09-2012 11:30am

spacetweek wrote: »

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

Or works in an IT company... (not within Dublin granted, but outside, certainly)

Geuze · 10-09-2012 11:53am

Maybe Boards is populated with a lot of young people...??

I know couples on 150k.

Many of my colleagues are on 75k.

None of my friends are on 25k, unless starting out in jobs.

The average hourly earnings in Ireland are 22 per hour.

TheChizler · 10-09-2012 12:43pm

Markcheese wrote: »

spacetweek wrote: »

dlofnep wrote: »

There must be some serious money made at top levels to skew this, because most people are on less than 25k a year.

NakedNNettles wrote: »

While the vast majority of the population are on less than 25k the greedy pigs are slurping more than their fair share from the trough. 100k plus

It's interesting to me that there seems to be a particular age group/demographic on here. May I ask how old you guys are? And what industry you work in?

I don't know anyone who makes less than 25k. The only time that occurred briefly to me or anyone I know was when we graduated and got crappy starter salaries, but within about 6 months we were all > 25k. These are typical wages in lreland.

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

And that's another reason why the country is fecked....

Cause some people earn a degree and earn more taxable income?

strandroad · 10-09-2012 1:03pm

TheChizler wrote: »

Cause some people earn a degree and earn more taxable income?

Because people with a degree don't understand what average means; and that to get a €35k average one guy on €75k must be balanced by a bunch of €25k folks.

Farmer Pudsey · 10-09-2012 2:21pm

spacetweek wrote: »

It's interesting to me that there seems to be a particular age group/demographic on here. May I ask how old you guys are? And what industry you work in?

I don't know anyone who makes less than 25k. The only time that occurred briefly to me or anyone I know was when we graduated and got crappy starter salaries, but within about 6 months we were all > 25k. These are typical wages in lreland.

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

This is very condescending there are loads of the workforce on less than 25K. Workers in retail ( in such as convience shops, fast food resturants and even in supermakets). care staff in some nursing homes even last week on the radion staff contracted to the HSE through an agency were on 9.5/hour.

There are hundreds of thousand more on between 25-30K working as truck/van drivers, general operatives in the building/construction trade.

Remember the average private sector wage in Ireland is around 33K so for every worker on over 50K there is 2-3 on below 33K to balance.

Why do you think there is such pressure on to lower the minimum wage, the Hotel, resturant and pub trade is staffed mostly with workers on arounf 25K at the most.

kodoherty93 · 10-09-2012 2:34pm

I read in the Irish Times recently to be in the top 20% of earners you have to earn €100,000. However if the minimum wage is only 8.65 a hour that small 20% and even the 1 % at €450,000 distorts the whole figures. For eg the walton family in the US(they own about half of walmart supermarkets) have more wealth than the bottom 20% of americans

Gumbo · 10-09-2012 2:52pm

mhge wrote: »

Because people with a degree don't understand what average means; and that to get a €35k average one guy on €75k must be balanced by a bunch of €25k folks.

Here is a story about statistics I made up for my son:
Once there was a boy who asked his parents to double his pocket money to €40 a month. When his parents laughed, he got angry. “The average guys in my class get a month is ten times that”, he said.

His parents were gobsmacked, but suspicious. They asked their friends and all of their kids were getting €20 a month too. When they quizzed their son further he owned up that he had included the teachers after tax salary in his average: €503 [15,000+(30x€20) divided by 31].

This highlights the difference between the average (or mean) and other measures. If the son had reported the mode (most common figure) or the median (the figure at which half the set got more & half got less), both of those would have been €20. But the mean can get skewed by a small number of more highly paid individuals.

And it also, incidentally, shows that pay can be fair and yet averages vary between groups. Imagine that there were another class with an identically paid teacher and only ten pupils. Instead of an average of €503 [15,000+(30x€20) divided by 31] the average for that class would be €1,381 [15,000+(10x€20) divided by 11]. Both teachers are paid the same, all students are paid the same, but the average for one class is almost three times the other.
And that is why the mix of employment means average public sector pay and average private sector pay will always be different. There are more doctors in the public sector; more retail staff in the private. You might argue retail staff should be paid more, you might argue public sector workers are paid more here than in other countries – those are separate questions. While the mix is different the averages can’t be usefully compared, any more than the two class averages above can.

That is why every month the CSO says average pay for the public sector and private sector cannot be directly compared.
Now let us never speak of this again.

...............................

murphaph · 10-09-2012 3:06pm

nice story and it has some merit. What cannot be so easily explained away however is why the percantage differences between private and public sectors in the UK and Ireland are so diverse.

In the UK the public sector earns 7% more than the private sector (average salaries). In Ireland it is at least 25% (and that is the most conservative figue I have seen, many would say it's more like 50%, but anyway).

So why is the difference between average pay in the sectors at least 3.5 times greater in Ireland than the UK???????

Laminations · 10-09-2012 3:08pm

TheChizler wrote: »

Any idea what the median wage is? Might give a more appropriate estimate than the average.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

$24,677 in 2007 so I imagine lower than that now. The high wages of a minority skew the average.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0328/1224314010417.html

OMD · 10-09-2012 3:10pm

Average pay for a full time worker in Ireland is about €45,000. €22 per hour X 40 X52.

Gumbo · 10-09-2012 3:13pm

OMD wrote: »

Average pay for a full time worker in Ireland is about €45,000. €22 per hour X 40 X52.

Thats assuming a 40 hour week.
Most 9-5 jobs are actually 9-1 & 2-5 to allow for a lunch break.

I would class that working week as 35 hours and hence €40,040 as the average full time working salary, in my opinion of course

murphaph · 10-09-2012 3:38pm

kceire wrote: »

Thats assuming a 40 hour week.
Most 9-5 jobs are actually 9-1 & 2-5 to allow for a lunch break.

I would class that working week as 35 hours and hence €40,040 as the average full time working salary, in my opinion of course

Most "9-5" jobs are in fact 9-6 jobs as very few firms pay people for their lunch break (which must be taken and in many firms it's an hour, compulsory). The only time I was ever paid for lunch was when I worked shift for a spell. It's common with shift work to be paid for your breaks for some reason.

seamus · 10-09-2012 3:38pm

Laminations wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income

$24,677 in 2007 so I imagine lower than that now. The high wages of a minority skew the average.

$24,677 when adjusted for PPP. That's not the same thing as the actual median so isn't all that relevant here.

That is, the median wage is not €19,000 (that's roughly what $24k is in euros). Adjusting for PPP takes into account things like the cost of living, cost of goods, taxes, etc etc to work out what the buying power of the median wage in one country would be if they were in the United States.

In PPP terms, Ireland = 1.25 where the US = 1, so that adjusted median wage of $24k translates to an actual median of $30k, or about €23.5k.

Of course, that's all very rough, the figures are from 2007, and it's household income versus personal income, so can't be compared to the published €35k average per capita income.

Edit: Useful household income stuff here:
www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/silc/2010/silc_2010.pdf

Gumbo · 10-09-2012 3:57pm

murphaph wrote: »

Most "9-5" jobs are in fact 9-6 jobs as very few firms pay people for their lunch break (which must be taken and in many firms it's an hour, compulsory).

yeah theres a whole argument for "am i paid for my luch" when on a salary or it it simply built in.

Its a tough one to work out hours wise, most offices close at 5. some open till 6 or 5.30. My old job we stayed till 5.30 mon-thurs but on Friday we got to finish at 2pm

Laminations · 10-09-2012 4:02pm

seamus wrote: »

$24,677 when adjusted for PPP. That's not the same thing as the actual median so isn't all that relevant here.

That is, the median wage is not €19,000 (that's roughly what $24k is in euros). Adjusting for PPP takes into account things like the cost of living, cost of goods, taxes, etc etc to work out what the buying power of the median wage in one country would be if they were in the United States.

In PPP terms, Ireland = 1.25 where the US = 1, so that adjusted median wage of $24k translates to an actual median of $30k, or about €23.5k.

Of course, that's all very rough, the figures are from 2007, and it's household income versus personal income, so can't be compared to the published €35k average per capita income.

Edit: Useful household income stuff here:
www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/silc/2010/silc_2010.pdf

Good points. I;'ve found an income distribution http://www.colly.tv/irelands-income-tax-distribution-chart/ which the author is using to compute tax burdens.

If you look at the %s in each income bracket you get an idea that the 'average wage' is skewed upwards. If the figures were copy n paste-able I'd graph it out and do stats, but they're not so I won't

Farmer Pudsey · 10-09-2012 4:26pm

OMD wrote: »

Average pay for a full time worker in Ireland is about €45,000. €22 per hour X 40 X52.

Average private sector wages in Ireland is 612 euro's/week this would include industry, retail, hotel etc. The average Public sector wage is 920 euro see link and it is not from the Indo so all Indo lovers can read as well.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/archives/2012/0830/opinion/public-v-private-sector--growing-pay-gap-is-unfair-205760.html

Zascar · 10-09-2012 4:39pm

You may find this interesting:

TheChizler · 10-09-2012 5:44pm

Of course it doesn't really make sense to compute average wages from multiple professions.

Farmer Pudsey · 10-09-2012 5:56pm

TheChizler wrote: »

Of course it doesn't really make sense to compute average wages from multiple professions.

No it doesn't makes sence to show anything that shows the difference between public sector and private sector wages. even though the average private sector wage is much the same in Ireland and in the UK. But the difference in public sector pay in the UK is 7% above the private sector while in Ireland the difference is 40%.

Anything that shows that public sector workers are overpaid and is unfavourable to public sector must be wrong and not make sence

TheChizler · 10-09-2012 6:00pm

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

TheChizler wrote: »

Of course it doesn't really make sense to compute average wages from multiple professions.

No it doesn't makes sence to show anything that shows the difference between public sector and private sector wages. even though the average private sector wage is much the same in Ireland and in the UK. But the difference in public sector pay in the UK is 7% above the private sector while in Ireland the difference is 40%.

Anything that shows that public sector workers are overpaid and is unfavourable to public sector must be wrong and not make sence

I'm talking about something like getting an average that includes the wages of a CEO and shop assistant etc.

OMD · 10-09-2012 6:01pm

Zascar wrote: »

You may find this interesting:

18% of people earn less than 10,000? Obviously they are part time but it sounds high. Are they including pensions?

10-09-2012 6:19pm

spacetweek wrote: »

...........

Nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only 6 months in the job or it's sweeping the streets.

Many retail workers are on less than that, along with many hairdressers, creche workers, beauticians and many others. That's over €12/hour.

Lots of the working population have no formal third level qualification.

Peanut · 10-09-2012 7:55pm

Zascar wrote: »

You may find this interesting:

Hard to disentangle median wage from this since it doesn't differentiate between part-time/full-time work etc.

Still, you can ask - What is the median gross income range for this table?

Total number of cases is 2151456.
The 50% mark in terms of population would then be 2151456/2=1075728.

We can find the median gross income by looking at what bracket the 1075728'th taxpayer falls in to.
Adding the number of cases to find this individual:

394539+71794+112979+74477+124386+204127+76215=1058517

..the start of the 27,000 to 30,000 bracket

+106521=1165038 ...the end of the bracket.
So our 50% mark is near the start (17211th) of the 27,000 to 30,000 bracket.

--

However, the 0-10,000 figures almost certainly skew things, as many of them probably don't represent fulltime jobs or other circumstances.

So if we ignore this bracket, and just look at gross income above 10,000, then the median will be at 2151456-394539=1756917/2=878458
The 878458th income is within the 30,000 to 35,000 bracket:

Start of bracket is 71794+112979+74477+124386+204127+76215+106521=770499
End of bracket is 770499+155769=926268
The 2009 median income just considering taxable gross incomes over 10k is therefore roughly three-quarters way through the 30,000 to 35,000 bracket.

Duggys Housemate · 10-09-2012 8:29pm

Good work peanut. But I wouldnt remove the < 10,000. Those are real earned wages and I significant part of the population. I suspect most are doing it part time, to supplement household income, but it is what it is.

For non-normal distributions we should abandon the average, average is a joke stat.

You clearly don't understand what's going on do you ?, elites are not employees on a wage, they are the people that earn profits on the labour of others. Check out the ST list of Ireland's rich, this 'recession' has made them wealther than they ever were in the celtic tiger.

Quite. Or they earn rent. Very very few PAYE workers in Ireland earn above the 250K bracket. We can see from that bracket that 10,667 (0.5%) people earn above 250K but more tellingly they earn 6B between them, or on average - 600K. However the average is misleading here too - I bet there are a few people earning tens, or hundreds of millions. The top 0.25% probably take the lions share of that - about 4-5 billion.

And they would be earning dividends or profit or capital gains. Nobody gets that in wages - we don't have American type CEO salaries here, or the banking magnates from London. The point being is that increasing "income tax" - a misnomer, if ever there was one - because it is really a PAYE income tax wont do anything. This myth pervades the left and right. Anyway, to tax the top 0.25% we need to tax dividends and capital gains.

What is the average wage in Ireland?

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