Portugal is among the 13 Member States of the European Union (EU) with minimum wages below 1,000 euros gross, but leads this list with 823 euros in 12 months, Eurostat reports today.
According to the EU statistics service, in January 2022, 13 Member States had minimum wages below 1,000 euros per month: Bulgaria (Euro332), Latvia (Euro500), Romania (Euro515), Hungary (Euro542), Croatia ( Euro624), Slovakia (Euro646), Czech Republic (Euro652), Estonia (Euro654), Poland (Euro655), Lithuania (Euro730), Greece (Euro774), Malta (Euro792) and Portugal (Euro823).
The minimum wage set in Portugal for 2022 is 705 euros, but paid in 14 months, with Eurostat dividing the total amount by 12 months, raising the value to 823 euros.
In Slovenia (Euro1,074) and Spain (Euro1,126) minimum wages were slightly above 1,000 euros per month and in the remaining six of the 21 Member States where they are in force the values were above 1,500 euros per month: France (Euro1. 603), Germany (Euro1,621), Belgium (Euro1,658), the Netherlands (Euro1,725), Ireland (Euro1,775) and Luxembourg with a value of more than two thousand euros (Euro2,257).
Among the 21 Member States under analysis, the minimum wage in Luxembourg (the highest) is almost seven times higher than in Bulgaria (the lowest).
The disparities, however, are smaller when minimum wages are expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP), with Luxembourg falling to 1,707 and Bulgaria rising to 604 euros.
Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Italy, Finland and Sweden do not apply a national minimum wage.