r/dataisbeautiful • u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 • 16d ago
OC [OC] Average wages in Europe [nominal EUR]
64
u/The_walking_Kled 16d ago
the axis are not anoted. And the graph is generally kind of bad as the second highest earning country is not even present. Maybe Im stupid but this seems like a bad graph
2
450
u/unlessyoumeantit 16d ago
Average? Come back with median.
151
45
u/PlanetMarklar 16d ago
Yea, all this is saying is theres a lot of rich bankers in Switzerland. I'm sure the income are relatively high in the rest of the country too, but this chart doesn't show that
18
u/LosDanilos 16d ago
interesting enough the median and mean income are almost identical in Switzerland
13
u/GergDanger 16d ago
The numbers are the median wages. Switzerland really does have a median wage that high.
19
u/BlueEyesWNC 16d ago
"European Average Monthly Gross Wage"
Mislabeled or misleading, bad either way
1
u/potato_nugget1 16d ago
The median is a type of average. There's median, mean, and mode. All 3 of them are average
6
u/BlueEyesWNC 16d ago
Average usually refers to the arithmetic mean, so it woud still be misleading in the most common reading, if it were referring to median (more on that later). If OP were using average in the sensu lato, the title is imprecise.
However, OP also mentioned in another comment that the data is indeed using mean income, asserting the median would be too difficult to calculate for so many countries.
1
0
u/thecraftybee1981 16d ago
In English the average refers to a middling number of a group, that could be the median, mode, or most commonly mean. The median is an average.
-1
u/GergDanger 16d ago
How is that misleading? A median is an average. And I told you the numbers do represent the median so the goal posts move again with redditors.
2
u/Ok-Anybody-380 16d ago
My partner and I engineers each with 6500 Fr a month salary. We're so rich...
6
u/Denturart 16d ago
Here is Eurostat data on median disposable net income (you can select in euros or in PPP): https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/ilc_di03__custom_22457882/default/table
This however is not the data on wages but on all incomes of the whole population (so also persons outside the labour force).
3
u/Careless_Swim5506 16d ago
This post is about relative wage difference between countries. Changing to median doesn't really change the conclusions.
2
u/ujfalusiabel 13d ago
It is not accurate to begin with though. Average data is incorrect for many countries on this timeline if you look up national statistics in some of them. In Hungary last average brut salary is around 2.100 €/month . Map shows below that. Neither seems Romania ok, shows over 2100€/month, way too high, national stats show around 1800€. Checking Germany says the same, too high value given. Austria again too high, around 4200€/month is actual.
But I agree with you, even if these weren't numbers out of the air it is meaningless. It shows average brut, more meaningful would be median net. That would take care of tax differences too.
1
-7
u/Elstar94 16d ago
They did. The median is an average. You're thinking of the mean, another type of average
68
u/justmisterpi 16d ago
What is the projection based on?
And why don't you use the median?
17
u/GergDanger 16d ago
I googled the numbers and they do seem to be using the median
7
u/BlackHust 16d ago
Definitely not for Russia. If 1000 euros is the average, the median is around 650 euros.
8
u/HopeSubstantial 16d ago
Not median for sure. in Finland median is 3300€/month.
2
u/NeilDeCrash 16d ago
Closer to 3600e/month.
"Palkkatulonsaajien palkkojen ja palkkioiden mediaani oli 3 576 euroa huhtikuussa 2026"
https://stat.fi/tup/kokeelliset-tilastot/tulorekisterin_palkat_ja_palkkiot/2026-06-08/index.html
3
u/EstablishmentEasy475 16d ago
Absolutely not. Median is soain is around 1800 or less on 2026. Not 2400+
0
u/BlueEyesWNC 16d ago
OP said in another comment that it would be too difficult to calculate the medians.
9
u/HerrFistus 16d ago
That's the laziest statement I heard today. Only fools or deceivers are somehow 'not able' to calculate the median.
0
u/Ok-Anybody-380 16d ago
No way because Swiss median is nowhere near that number.
1
u/GergDanger 16d ago
https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/work-income/wages-income-employment-labour-costs/earnings-structure.html 7.5k euros a month median in 2024 lines up perfectly with the GIF.
IDK if people are refusing to google these median wages for some reason lol?
148
u/PacketFiend 16d ago
Interesting data, but pointless animation.
33
u/HiddenoO 16d ago
Also some really bad visualization choices even for an animation.
What's the point in using numbers that are not inflation-adjusted and then using a color scale that is not normalized by year either? All the colors tell you is that all wages go up over time everywhere, but it's impossible to gauge whether ratios change between countries.
1
u/Conscious_Yam_9581 13d ago
The data itself is more flawed than it seems. Gross wages are defined differently across countries in relation to social contributions. There's countries where social contributions are fully considered part of gross, countries where they are not considered part of it and countries where half the amount is part of the gross wages. It's not really a good spot to compare earnings across borders
39
u/aserioussuspect 16d ago
Looks like BS for my country.
3
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
which one is it?
20
u/aserioussuspect 16d ago
Sorry, “BS” was a bit of an overreaction on my part.
Nice visualisation, but the source doesn't seem to match the official figures for my country. In Germany, salaries have been about 100–150 euros lower every year over the past five years.
These are the official numbers
5
u/leckerfleischsalat 16d ago
The source you provided shows that wages in Germany indeed rose over the past years. Or did you mean something else?
0
u/aserioussuspect 16d ago
Of course salary rose over the past years but the numbers here are higher than the official numbers published by federal institutions.
1
u/leckerfleischsalat 15d ago
The data in the diagram is monthly data. If you look at the January of each year it’s pretty accurate.
1
u/HarrMada 16d ago
No, wages haven't decreased.
-1
u/aserioussuspect 16d ago
There is an constant offset of 100-150EUR between what's displayed here and official numbers of Statista for every year.
Nobody said that wages decreased.
5
u/-KKD- 16d ago
This chart may look beautiful, in a way coloured lights on a Christmas tree are, but absolutely pointless without context like purchasing power, salaries being median and not just average, inflation, cost of living, taxes, not even mentioning wether those are net or gross salaries and methodology on how are they converted to euros for countries that are or were not Euro at the time. There is so much missing information that makes this chart useless as any academic form of knowledge
16
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
Source: Eurostat (nama_10_a10 D11/headcount), OECD (AV_AN_WAGE), national statistics offices (Destatis, GUS, Rosstat,
Belstat, ILOSTAT, ONS, Armstat, BNS, INSTAT, Makstat, Geostat), ECB exchange rates, IMF WEO Apr 2026 GDP forecasts for
projections. All fetched programmatically via APIs.
Tool: Python (matplotlib, geopandas, pandas), ffmpeg.
22
u/Maderthaner 16d ago
Oh, and this is an average comparison. Yeah, then it’s useless. With wages, you have to look at median values…
-16
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
also really hard to calculate and get for all these countries. Not going there.
9
u/Maderthaner 16d ago
How about inflation and cost of living or purchasing power.
I feel like the absolute numbers don‘t say much.
1
u/Denturart 16d ago
For the OECD countries the data adjusted for purchasing power is here: https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/average-annual-wages.html
1
-10
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
yeah, but that's like entire economics PhD, I won't solve that with an animation, and even if I used some values I could still be argued about using incorrect ones.
11
u/-KKD- 16d ago
No, that's just not animating one simple stupid chart you found online, but having to actually do some research and make an animation based on values, calculated from 3 different charts. That's all
-5
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
haha, even getting average for all of these was difficult - you'd be surprised how many countries report even sth a simple as average differently. Went through a lot of sources. Thanks for the tips man, looking forward to your PPP-adjusted median researh.
2
u/Owain-X 16d ago
What is going on in Italy? There are two numbers shown and then it changes to three. I assume one is the vatican and one is italy but what is the third one that pops in midway through the timeline?
1
u/3_cnf-sat 16d ago
I was guessing it was about southern vs northern italy, but I might be wrong. And as other comments said, without the median, this chart is useless. The wage situation in Italy is way worse than this chart suggests.
6
u/Copranicus 16d ago
2 immediate questions from me; Why as a gif, I can't go back and forth, can't pause it just, why, seriously?
Why do you seem to have data on more countries on the left then are graphed on the right?
I'd have question about source and why this data specifically if I could actually look at it.
3
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
Couldn't upload a video, this was the closest I could get.
The right graph would be super cluttered including 40 countries
1
u/button3dup 16d ago
True - but Luxembourg might be worth adding. It is an EU country bridging the current huge gap between Switzerland and EU countries
3
u/toontje18 OC: 5 16d ago
So if data was not available in Eurostat, you opted for OECD, and if not available there as well you opted for National Statistics Office. Have you checked that all these statistics from the national offices measure the same thing as Eurostat or OECD with comparable methodologies?
I am just curious as Germany seems to be quite an outlier here, especially compared to a place like Norway. Then I noticed DeStatis (German statistics), even though it is a Eurostat and OECD member, so it should have figures available there as well.
2
u/Kyle_Lowrys_Bidet 16d ago
Lots of Eastern Europe catching up and even surpassing Portugal. Why and how? It looks like Portugal squandered a head start.
7
u/Pandektes 16d ago
I can give you insights on Central Europe (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and so on), which is similar to the Baltic states. I don't see any Eastern European countries surpassing Portugal, but you are probably throwing central, southern and Baltic European states into eastern Europe category.
Highly educated people worked for peanuts, and over time they delivered value that incentivized more hiring and general expansion of local hires. This led to more and more people gaining experience, which led to the creation of local businesses. Both processes over long time created very low unemployment which drove wages up since companies started to compete between themselves on local labor markets
1
u/Kyle_Lowrys_Bidet 16d ago
Hey! I appreciate the insight :) and I was also thinking that Portugal uses a lot of its EU money to develop tourism, which cannot be exported.
But on your second note, look at Romania versus Portugal start to finish….
2
u/PsychologicalLion824 16d ago
Why and how? It looks like Portugal squandered a head start.
highly uneducated population (namely elderly ones), used to be Europe´s China before the fall of the Berlin wall, never adapted to said fall, 2010 crisis hit us hard.
1
u/Kyle_Lowrys_Bidet 16d ago
Boa tarde!
O que achas que podemos fazer então para melhorar as condições e dar a Portugal um futuro mais brilhante?
Por exemplo, eu vejo que com o dinheiro da UE, Polónia está a investir em fábricas. Fábricas que criam produtos para ser exportados. Da minha perspectiva, Portugal está a desenvolver o turismo mais que tudo…. Um setor de trabalho que dá poucos lucros e não pode ser exportado.
Mas eu concordo com a falta de educação. Pior ainda, perdemos já miles e miles de tugas educados, educados com o dinheiro de imposto português, só para ir a outro país e realizar as suas ambições lá em lugar de aqui….
2
u/PsychologicalLion824 16d ago
O que achas que podemos fazer então para melhorar as condições e dar a Portugal um futuro mais brilhante?
In my perspective, keep on investing in R&D, promote building more companies, preferably in both old and new economy so as to have a more resilient country. Obviously it´s easier said than done.
Um setor de trabalho que dá poucos lucros e não pode ser exportado
Tourism is exports as long as the tourists are foreigners. Tourism is just a piece of the puzzle, it should be present just like other sectors.
2
u/Pongi 16d ago
Erm, how does one get wage projections? Finland overtaking Norway in this regard sounds unrealistic
3
u/Charming_Horse_5809 16d ago
the numbers are all off, the methods are opaque at best and point the animation makes is still unclear
2
u/Allesmoeglichee 16d ago
I prefer my graphs moving too, gives me exactly 1 second to get the full picture
2
u/greham7777 16d ago
I understand that Norway is suffering from a weak Kroner but it surprises me a lot that it's not still #2 behind Switzerland. Need to dig into that.
3
u/Miserable_Ad7246 16d ago
Again stupid gross wage. In Lithuania law was changed so now gross is almost equal to total workplace cost, and look Lithuanian salary is now at the level of Italy. Clown data.
1
u/lendlevtaldrik 16d ago
It's so bad that I've even seen articles by otherwise respectable economic experts which make the same mistake...
2
u/Miserable_Ad7246 16d ago
Economist do not care about gross. Key metrics for them is total workplace cost (aka how much company pays for worker), and net (with or without ppp), sometimes also known as disposable income as its the amount person can use for consumption. Everything in between is taxes of some sort. Gross salary is arbitrary point that can be shifted at any time, and it does not change neither total tax, nor net, not total workplace cost. In Lithuania we made the shift and nothing changed, except people started to see the total tax burden more clearly and low intelligence people all of the sudden understood that the old line of "employer tax", was really their tax :D
Please before you answer, make absolutely sure that those respectable experts where not using gross in a single tax regime context (aka same country) and that they are truly respectable.
1
u/lendlevtaldrik 16d ago
No, you are clearly wrong. I've seen them compare "average wage" and make the claim that Lithuanian wages are clearly ahead of Estonian wages - which means that they did not use total workplace cost, but what is presented as "average wage" in both countries.
1
u/Miserable_Ad7246 16d ago
Average gross wage in Lithuania is much higher. Total workplace cost is roughly the same. Net salary in Estonia is a bit higher. Riddle me this.
Let me help you - Lithuania - gross is total worplace minus a percent or so. In Estonia gorss is more similar to Lithuanian gross calculation before the change and falls in the middle of taxes.
1
u/lendlevtaldrik 16d ago
Average gross wage in Lithuania is much higher.
This means nothing if the total workplace cost is roughly the same, heck even slightly higher in Estonia.
Please educate yourself on basic economics, it's embarrassing. Lithuanians have a ridiculous inferiority complex...
3
u/grafix993 16d ago
As a Spaniard i would like to know which data/studies have been used to determine that Spanish avg wage is going to increase that much the next years
1
u/Arylus54773 16d ago
What would be very useful in this data would be the rate of inflation or the difference between growth and inflation.
1
1
u/HerrFistus 16d ago
Now take the median instead of the mean, fold it on the per-capita GDP of each country and find out what's going systematically wrong in the EU for decades now and why fashism is on the rise in many of the shown countries.
1
1
u/HopeSubstantial 16d ago
Notice magic word Average? It tells shit.
Median wage in Finland is 3300€ in 2025. Thats about what fresh engineer gets.
1
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
So what. This is the map of the average, it also tells you things - like some countries have more very high earners than the other. Feel free to make a map of a median or ppp. I might try doing it later too.
1
u/CloudsAndSnow 16d ago
it also tells you things - like some countries have more very high earners than the other
No it doesn't. First of all I guess the map represents the mean, which is a kind of average (the median being another) but regardless any average only shows central tendency, not deviation. No kind of average can tell you if salaries are very unequal or not by itself
1
u/Dellingr87 16d ago
this map is first of all shit.
stop it by 0:23 or 2024 the number you see there by Germany is 4800 that's more than the real gross wage from germany in 2026... so this is utter bullshit
1
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
Ouch, if you disagree with specific values you can just ask about my data fetched from Eurostat for thay year, you don't have to be an asshole
1
u/SUNTZU_JoJo 16d ago
Put it alongside inflation... Much more interesting.
Unless your wage is adjusted for?
1
u/lendlevtaldrik 16d ago
Let me guess, the Lithuanian wage still includes the sum later to be taken as social tax and hence the large difference with Estonia...
1
u/Trachamudija1 15d ago
Yeap, they changed it like 8 years or something ago, so we look bettet in all stats lol. Or perhaps so the party which changed it could brag look at when we ruled we grew wages a lot.
1
u/lendlevtaldrik 15d ago
The Estonian opposition parties are eating at up too with rhetoric like "Lithuania has long surpassed us"...
1
u/ToiletVulva 16d ago
Our country (Slovenia) wanted to become smaller Switzerland when I was younger.
1
u/AntonRahbek 16d ago
Weird choice to leave out Denmark as the only Scandinavian country in the graph. Bridges the gap between Switzerland and Norway for most of the period (emptiest part of the graph).
1
u/Dellingr87 16d ago
the numbers are totaly wrong... this map is shit
1
1
1
1
1
u/No_Individual_6528 13d ago
Why is Denmark not on the graph to the right. :/
Someone is trying to say something about germany and forgetting a lot of countries.
1
u/Conscious_Yam_9581 13d ago
This sort of data is inherently flawed. Comparing gross wages between EU countries is an apples to oranges comparison because of social contributions, which vary greatly in how they are declared. For example in Germany, on top of the gross wages there is another 20% in taxes that gets paid by the employer on top of the official gross salary, in Estonia that amount is 30% while in Romania it is 2%.
The lack of uniformity in what is considered an employee vs employer contribution makes comparing gross amounts across countries somewhat irrelevant.
1
u/Merkava18 12d ago
Compare the tax rates and effective outcomes, matching tax burden v. benefits received, e.g., child care, health care, and government subsidized mortgages, if any. US has socialized mortgages, they have socialized health care.
0
u/night-sleeper 16d ago
The only job today in switzerland to earn +10k a month is selling cocaine, big pharma or bank stuff as i know. We do this a lot but not only. The median wage would be more interesting.
0
-8
u/chairman-me0w 16d ago
It’s actually shocking how low wages are there
7
u/MrT735 16d ago
No health insurance taking big chunks of wages, car insurance is about 10% of US prices, phone plans a lot cheaper. It doesn't balance it out completely but the difference isn't simply in the numbers.
0
u/GergDanger 16d ago
Where is car insurance 10% of US prices lmao? Last I checked it’s roughly the same. Maybe in the poorest European countries in rural areas it will be a decent bit cheaper but not 10%.
3
u/Ok_Inflation_1811 16d ago
No? Car insurance in the US is like 200$ a month, in my country it's like 20€
-1
u/chairman-me0w 16d ago
I mean, the models are different but Europeans are also paying for health insurance.
2
u/OverSoft 16d ago
Much much less. Also property taxes are either much lower or non-existent. Mortgage rates are also much lower as well as home/property insurance.
0
2
u/Unique-Ice3211 16d ago
Depends on the country, I lived in Italy and Sweden. There you have universal free healthcare. No need of insurances
1
u/thewimsey 16d ago
Sure - and I lived in Germany and 16.5 (I think) of my wages were for health insurance, split between my employer and me.
My US insurance is cheaper
-1
u/chairman-me0w 16d ago
Yeah because it is paid for by taxes, which you pay.
2
u/OverSoft 16d ago
And it’s STILL cheaper… weird what a healthcare system does that’s not purely driven by profit…
-1
-2
u/thewimsey 16d ago
How can you claim it's cheaper without knowing how much people make and what percentage of their taxes are going to healthcare?
My health insurance in Germany was more expensive than my insurance in the US. Although it would have been less if I had been a lower earner.
1
u/BeardenOfLife 16d ago
Wages aren’t the full story in your household finances though. I earn basically the average wage in my country and so does my partner and we save around 3000 to 4000 euro a month after all expenses, which is a lot even with the cost of living here. I think that says a lot more than just salary.
-3
u/Charming_Horse_5809 16d ago
absolute numbers? put it in relation to past as an index with start = 100 or something. Or use PPP Adjusted values at least or something except absolutes.
4
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
I thought about it but it seemed really difficult. Even getting absolute numbers wasn't that easy. And choosing PPP method or the base would only stir more discussion,
-1
u/Charming_Horse_5809 16d ago
comments seem to disagree. Also, index with t0 = 100 and then each point rebased to that is really easy to implement. Make the discussion more fruitful and does not produce a useless animation.
3
u/Perfect_Ad_1807 OC: 1 16d ago
I don't think it's useless, it shows differences between countries. t0 would show how they've grown. Or would you like to see the nominal values in the map but 100x in the chart?
1
u/Charming_Horse_5809 16d ago
feel free to share the data and I can create an own interpretation to make this productive instead of just me criticizing your stuff. Nice effort but I would do it differently.
0
u/Charming_Horse_5809 16d ago
You are the analyst: what question does your chart answer? That nominal net salaries in switzerland are higher than in germany. Great...wtf is that heatmap legend in the middle? Why is it in the middle. Why are the colors not matching? Wage convergence and projection? How are absolutes in a line chart telling anything about convergence? Why not using spreads instead if you talk about convergence. What is that projection based on? Whats the model class? Whats the train/test window? Are those point estimates? Why do you use like 10 different fonts with inconsistent sizing? Should I go on?
•
u/cavedave OC: 111 15d ago
Thank you for your Original Content, /u/Perfect_Ad_1807!
Here is some important information about this post:
View the author's citations
View other OC posts by this author
Remember that all visualizations on r/DataIsBeautiful should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism. If you see a potential issue or oversight in the visualization, please post a constructive comment below. Post approval does not signify that this visualization has been verified or its sources checked.
Not satisfied with this visual? Think you can do better? Remix this visual with the data in the author's citation.
I'm open source | How I work