Date: September 14, 2018
According to Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, “Hourly labour costs rose by 2.2% in the Euro Area (EA19) and by 2.9% in the EU28 in the second quarter compared with the same quarter of the previous year. In the first quarter of 201, hourly labour costs increased by 2.1% and 2.8%, respectively.”
In addition, the two main components of labour costs are wages & salaries and non-wage costs. There was a 1.9% growth in the cost of wage and salaries per hour, in the Euro Area, and non-wage component grew by 2.9% in the second quarter of 2018 compared with the same quarter of the prior year. However, in the first quarter of 2018, annual charges were 2.7% and 3.1%, respectively.
Breakdown of Economic Activity
When the second quarter of 2018 was compared with the same quarter of the prior year, hourly labour costs in the Euro Area rose by 2.2% in industry, by 2.7% in construction, by 2.5% in services and by 1.5% in the mainly non-business economy.
Member States
Notably, the highest annual increases in hourly labour costs for the whole economy, in the second quarter of 2018, were registered in Romania (+15.6%), Latvia (+11.7%) and Hungary (+10.2%), while the lowest annual increases in hourly labour costs were recorded in Luxembourg (+0.6%), Spain (+0.7%) and the Netherlands (+0.9%).
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