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What is the average wage in Ireland?

cakeisgood

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.

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Duggys Housemate

smcgiff wrote: »

Are you talking about a relatively small number of people or the thousands earning over, say, €250k? The former are high profile but statistically irrelevant.

It would be just if all income earners over the top level PAYE threshold paid the 51% that salary earners make. As an accountant I would expect some disagreement from you though.

Duggys Housemate

TheChizler wrote: »

Well if we're in a thread about the average wage what are you doing bringing people who don't earn one into it! And also I think it's highly likely that if they're involved in some level with a company they are earning some sort of a wage as well.

Because we moved onto income long before this. The chart of income is all income declared to revenue. It makes no odds what wages people earn, the rich earn more as profit.

Farmer Pudsey

Peanut wrote: »

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.

Below is a link to an article in the examiner giving CSO figures I would imagine that having access to all tax figures/returns that it would be accurate I also pasted it out according to this the according the average private sector wage is 31,916.42 and the average public sector wage is 48508.08. Pretty conclusive I think I doubt if they would print lies like the Indo.

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

Public v private sector - Growing pay gap is unfair
Thursday, August 30, 2012

According to figures just published by the Central Statistics Office, the disparity between wages in the public and private sectors is actually growing.

Over the past four years weekly private sector earnings have fallen by 0.5%, whereas those in the public sector have increased by 2.8%.

This is clearly unbalanced and grossly unfair. The public service was already earning considerably more than private sector workers.

Average private sector earnings for the first three months of 2012 was €611.66 a week, which was down 1.9% on the previous three months. This compares with €919.99 in the public service, which was up slightly on the previous three months.

The number of public sector workers has dropped by almost 26,000 in the last year, but this is small compared to job losses in the private sector. There is no comparison in the degree of job security in the two sectors. Economic cutbacks have enormous implications for earnings in the private sector, while workers in the public service are receiving incremental pay increases. Talk about sharing the burden equally seems to be so much empty blather.

smcgiff

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

It would be just if all income earners over the top level PAYE threshold paid the 51% that salary earners make. As an accountant I would expect some disagreement from you though.

Take a high earner investing in a relatively risky business that a bank wont lend to through, say, a BES scheme. It provides tax relief for the high earner and funding for a business possibly employing employees. Is this something you think is wrong?

Motorist

NakedNNettles wrote: »

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.

I wouldn't call people who are earning more "greedy pigs". Ridiculous to berate people who are successful. We don't live in a communist state as much as you would like us to. There are enough social welfare benefits paid out of the taxes of the so-called "greedy pigs".

southsiderosie

MOD NOTE:

The OP asked a very specific question, and there is a lot of room here to discuss average vs. mean, how you compare wages across groups, etc. What there is not room for is the usual "Soak the rich, rawr, rawr" or "Public sector doesn't do anything, rawr, rawr" comments, which are beyond tiresome.

From here on out, if your contribution to this thread isn't actually about actual wage data, or how this data is compiled or compared, your posts will be deleted and infracted. For once, we are going to try to have a discussion of wages that is actually grounded in real, verifiable information, rather than the usual pre-formed opinions, pronouncements, and general bloviation that are the bane of this forum.

Jellicoe

TheChizler wrote: »

Even CEOs have a wage.

No they have a salary (which is not a wage), stock options, bonus etc. omg this is basic stuff we're dragged down to here. I would quit reading the sunday indo for your info if I were you.

Godge

One of the biggest problems with comparing private sector wages with public sector wages as reported by the CSO is the coverage issue.

Public sector wages cover everyone in the public sector. Consultants, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, solicitors, accountants etc. all figure in the data. Why? Because they are all employees.

However, private sector wages are different. Firstly, self-employed are excluded because they are not employees. Secondly, directors are excluded so the likes of Louis Fitzgerald can pay himself millions but it doesn't show up in the private sector data. Thirdly, partnerships are also excluded from the private sector data. Therefore while every lawyer and accountant, however highly paid, in the public sector, is included in the data, that doesn't apply to the private sector data where all the real fat cats are excluded. To sum up, you are comparing apples with oranges.

Head The Wall

Well they obviously managed to compare apples and oranges during benchmarking, there didn't seem to be an issue then. It seems too be a case now of not "trusting" the figures because they show them to be massively overpaid.

Why do the CSO and other countries still collect and publish average weekly and hourly earnings if according to all the posters here they are not a valid comparison?

Duggys Housemate

I don't agree that those income charts ignore non-salary or wages. The 10000 above 250k earn 6B between them, about 600k each. It isn't evenly distributed so there are millionaires in there. In fact the highest earners in the private sector earn far more than the highest earners in the public sector.

Am pretty sure the 40% differential is a median, or based on the equivalent percentiles.

hognef

Head The Wall wrote: »

Why do the CSO and other countries still collect and publish average weekly and hourly earnings if according to all the posters here they are not a valid comparison?

The CSO is a publicly-funded agency, and might be doing it in order to make themselves look important.

The equivalent bodies in other countries don't all publish stats in the same crude manner - some actually put more effort into breaking the data down to such a level that it actually does compare apples with apples, and oranges with oranges (or pharmacists with pharmacists and janitors with janitors, in this case).

This general issue also manifests itself in relation to house prices, for instance, which the CSO (among others) tend to publish as "a house outside Dublin now costs €X", as if all houses are the same size and quality and are located on equally-sized sites, and as if all areas outside of Dublin are equally desireable.

Zamboni

CSO data is also far from perfect.
CSO EHECS returns can easily be manipulated to suit the provider of the data.

Farmer Pudsey

Godge wrote: »

One of the biggest problems with comparing private sector wages with public sector wages as reported by the CSO is the coverage issue.

Public sector wages cover everyone in the public sector. Consultants, doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, solicitors, accountants etc. all figure in the data. Why? Because they are all employees.

However, private sector wages are different. Firstly, self-employed are excluded because they are not employees. Secondly, directors are excluded so the likes of Louis Fitzgerald can pay himself millions but it doesn't show up in the private sector data. Thirdly, partnerships are also excluded from the private sector data. Therefore while every lawyer and accountant, however highly paid, in the public sector, is included in the data, that doesn't apply to the private sector data where all the real fat cats are excluded. To sum up, you are comparing apples with oranges.

I disagree take the banks there are a lot of highly paid inviduals which because they are PAYE are included. A lot of self employed are not on high wages there are hundreds of thousands on low wages so if included it is quite possible that this would not change drastically the averages. Every body that is a sole trader is not a Louis Fitzgearld.

The Banks, IT sector etc are highly paid, very few accountants are in partnership yes there are partners in Ernest & Young however there are hundred of accountants working for them on a salery. FDC and IFAC are small accountancy firms also.

Solicitors are the same 5-6 partners in a firm or in a PLC and the rest are employed, similar with big construction and engineering firms such as SISK and CRH.

Also in the private sector are thousand's of small time trades people who now find themselves working for 4-600 euro's/week and have to take there costs out of it. The selfemployed JCB driver chargeing 20-25 euro's/hour earning between 700-1000 euro's/week and having to pay for diesel and maintenance out of it. Every self employed person is not on 70-100K/year minimum.

guinnessdrinker

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.

I'm not trying to be smart but to say nobody makes less than 25k unless they are only in a job 6 months would suggest to me that they are not in touch with reality.

It would sound as crazy as somebody saying "nobody makes more than 100k".

Stheno

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

The IT sector etc are highly paid

The highly paid people in the IT sector are people who in my experience have amassed years of experience, and regularly invest in and keep their qualification up to date.

It's not a case of work in IT and you'll make loads, it's more discerning that that.

Very different from being in the same job 20 years without having to study once.

maninasia

Zascar's post of the breakdown in brackets of 10,000s is illustrative. For all intents and purpose the mean and the median are not very useful indicators to understand income generation in Ireland. They apply to 9% of the total population at most! The earning distribution is very broad. Statistics..damn statistics folks.

More illustrative is
'what does a given person in a given role earn?'
'what pay scale are young people entering the workforce at?'
'what pay are older people in a given role earning'?
and yes...
'how does our pay for a given role in a public/private position compare to other countries'?

Maura74

Stheno wrote: »

The highly paid people in the IT sector are people who in my experience have amassed years of experience, and regularly invest in and keep their qualification up to date.

It's not a case of work in IT and you'll make loads, it's more discerning that that.

Very different from being in the same job 20 years without having to study once.

Study do not make people more efficient or smarter at their jobs, brings to mind ‘educated above intelligence’

strandroad

Maura74 wrote: »

Study do not make people more efficient or smarter at their jobs, brings to mind ‘educated above intelligence’

Study in IT is very practical, you simply need to be up to date with emerging technologies, programming languages etc. in order to do your job. It's actually best done by self-study or short targeted courses but if someone is not prepared to do that they have no chance of succeeding.

Farmer Pudsey

Stheno wrote: »

The highly paid people in the IT sector are people who in my experience have amassed years of experience, and regularly invest in and keep their qualification up to date.

It's not a case of work in IT and you'll make loads, it's more discerning that that.

Very different from being in the same job 20 years without having to study once.

Yes I agree with you the point I am trying to get accross is there seems to be a perception by some posters that the 40% difference in pay between private sector employees and public service employees is due to Higher Education of public servants and that a large section of private sector employees are self employed and that all these are high earners and that very littlr high earners in the private sector are PAYE workers

ardmacha

Study do not make people more efficient or smarter at their jobs

Of course study can make make people more efficient and smarter at doing their jobs!

daRobot

Maura74 wrote: »

Study do not make people more efficient or smarter at their jobs, brings to mind ‘educated above intelligence’

This actually might be one of the most foolish posts i've ever read on here.

Geuze

Earnings data published this week:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2011/earnlabcosts_2011.pdf

For 2011.

Average annual earnings is 35,905.

Stheno

Geuze wrote: »

Earnings data published this week:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2011/earnlabcosts_2011.pdf

For 2011.

Average annual earnings is 39,505.

Don't you mean €35,905?

maninasia

ardmacha wrote: »

Of course study can make make people more efficient and smarter at doing their jobs!

Not always, otherwise how come the credit crisis happened?

gurramok

Geuze wrote: »

Earnings data published this week:

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/2011/earnlabcosts_2011.pdf

For 2011.

Average annual earnings is 35,905.

The good ole CSO which has to my knowledge never released the median wage. The average wage is misleading as the top earners distort the actual numbers who earn a certain amount so the median wage would be lower. Just look at the numbers in the workforce who pay little to no income tax for starters!

Duggys Housemate

gurramok wrote: »

The good ole CSO which has to my knowledge never released the median wage. The average wage is misleading as the top earners distort the actual numbers who earn a certain amount so the median wage would be lower. Just look at the numbers in the workforce who pay little to no income tax for starters!

They could do with actually having a software or IT category, as it is impossible to extract the data from whatever they mean by Professional, scientific and technical vs Information and communication.

They could throw IT into either or both, and could include anything in "Professional" - there seems to be no law. The categories were no doubt useful in 1950.

Godge

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Yes I agree with you the point I am trying to get accross is there seems to be a perception by some posters that the 40% difference in pay between private sector employees and public service employees is due to Higher Education of public servants and that a large section of private sector employees are self employed and that all these are high earners and that very littlr high earners in the private sector are PAYE workers

A perception?

I am not going to dig up the relevant statistics for the umpteenth time.

However, it is a known fact that public sector employees hold higher education qualifications than private sector employees.
It is also a known fact that 100% of public sector employees are PAYE while a large part of the private sector consists of self-employed, directors, partners etc. whose full earnings do not feature in CSO data.
It is also a known fact from revenue data that the higher up you go the earnings pyrmaid the higher the proportion of self-employed. Yet you call this a perception????

Unless you can post some evidence to the contrary, accept these facts.

All of these facts would suggest that average earnings in the public sector should be greater than those in the private sector. By how much is the question? Now you can argue that there should be an adjustment for pension, security of employment, jobs are harder in the private sector, bonus, increments or whatever but argue on that basis not on spurious grounds that have been shown to be false.

Finally, where did the 40% come from again? We have wasted pages on several threads where the gap has been shown in the latest studies to be between 0 and 20% depending on the job.

Head The Wall

gurramok wrote: »

The good ole CSO which has to my knowledge never released the median wage. The average wage is misleading as the top earners distort the actual numbers who earn a certain amount so the median wage would be lower. Just look at the numbers in the workforce who pay little to no income tax for starters!

They have released a median wage, it was in the most recent National Employment survey. Have a read of it here.

The average difference in pay between Private and Public was 35% and the median average wage was 38.7%. The tone of your post seemed to imply that the median would be a lot less, it's not. Any explanation for that? Are we to take it that there is a large wage discrepancy?

gurramok

Head The Wall wrote: »

They have released a median wage, it was in the most recent National Employment survey. Have a read of it here.

The average difference in pay between Private and Public was 35% and the median average wage was 38.7%. The tone of your post seemed to imply that the median would be a lot less, it's not. Any explanation for that? Are we to take it that there is a large wage discrepancy?

From that report(2010 ref 1.13) the median wage of those in employment is 33,488 (644x52weeks), not 35,905. It was even less in 2009 at 31,564. Measuring household income would result in a smaller figure!

http://budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2012/Documents/Taxation%20Annexes%20to%20the%20Summary%20of%202012%20Budget%20and%20Estimates%20Measures.pdf
(iii) DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME EARNERS ON THE INCOME TAX FILE FOR 2011
AND FOR 2012 ON A PRE-BUDGET AND POST-BUDGET BASIS
Total
2,154,600

Exempt / Paying tax at the standard rate /Higher rate liability NOT fully offset by credits

38.08% / 43.66% / 18.26%
820,400 / 940,700 / 393,500

Higher tax rate rate kicks in at 32,800 so 81.74% earn below 32,800 before any credits\allowances\taxes are applied.

djpbarry

gurramok wrote: »

From that report(2010 ref 1.13) the median wage of those in employment is 33,488 (644x52weeks), not 35,905. It was even less in 2009 at 31,564.

That's a pretty decent income? And it's not a million miles off the mean figure, which is often dismissed on this site as not being representative.