Greece’s hourly labour costs are now rank 16th out of 28 countries in the European Union: in Greece, it costs on average €13.60 to employ someone per hour, half of the European Union average of €23.70
Labour costs in Greece fell by almost a fifth from 2008 and 2013, the biggest fall in the entire European Union, figures released last week showed.
The data from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical arm, found that the labour cost per hour in Greece fell from €16.70 in 2008 to €13.60 in 2013, a decrease of 18.6 per cent. That puts the labour costs in Greece far below the eurozone average of €28.20 and more than half of EU average of €23.70.
In 2008, just before the crisis hit the country, Greece’s labour costs were 65 per cent of the eurozone average. Last year, they were 48 per cent of the average.
Greece was one of only five other EU countries, among them Hungary (-5.2 per cent) and Portugal (5.1 per cent), to experience a fall in labour costs in the same period. In all the others, labour costs increased. On average, the hourly labour costs rose by 10.2 per cent in the 28 members of the EU and by 10.4 per cent in the eurozone.
Within the eurozone, the largest increases were recorded in Austria (+18.9 per cent), Slovakia (+17.0per cent) and Finland (+15.9 per cent).
Source: enetenglish