Wages in Malta rose by 3% in June quarter

Wages in Malta in Malta rose by 3% in the second quarter when compared to the same period last year, figures out today showed.

Data from Eurostat, the EU statistical agency, showed that wage-growth slowed down when compared to the first three months of the year. In the first quarter wages in Malta grew by 3.6%.

According to Eurostat, the hourly labour cost, which includes other labour expenses such as social security contributions apart from wages, during the second quarter rose by 3%.

The main driver here was the “non-business economy”, which includes public administration, that saw hourly labour costs grow by 6.1% during the second quarter.

On the flipside, the hourly labour cost for the “business economy” grew by 1.2%. This was driven mainly by the services sector that saw the hourly cost grow by 1.5%. The hourly labour cost in industry grew by 0.3%, while the construction industry saw no increase in the hourly labour cost during the second quarter when compared to the previous year.

Malta’s overall hourly labour cost is slightly above the EU average of 2.6% and higher than the Eurozone average of 2.2%.

The highest annual increases in hourly labour costs for the whole economy during the second quarter, 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%).