ZAGREB, February 4, 2020 – Croatia is among six EU countries where workers’ pay packets are lower on average than ten years ago, show data from the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI).
In the period from 2010 and 2019 average pay packets, adjusted for inflation (and including social security contributions and pay benefits), went down in Croatia by five percent.
The latest ETUI data show that pay packets also went down in Italy, by 2%, in Spain and Portugal, by 4% each, in Cyprus, by 7%, and in Greece, by 15%.
ETUI notes that average pay packets practically froze with barely above zero increases over the last decade in Finland (0.1%), Belgium (1.5%) and the Netherlands (1.5%).
“Working people in six EU countries are worse off than they were 10 years ago,” said Esther Lynch, ETUC Deputy General Secretary.
“EU leaders like to talk up the so-called recovery but the crisis is not over for millions of working people in many EU countries.”
“The EU must do much more to promote increases in wages and in minimum wages, and to support stronger collective bargaining in almost all EU member states,” Lynch said.
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