One in five employees in Ireland are classified as low-wage earners, according to the findings of a new EU report.
Figures published by the European Commission show that 19.8 per cent of workers in the Republic in 2022 were low-wage earners – the 7th highest rate among the 27 EU member states and above the EU average of 14.7 per cent.
The proportion of Irish workers deemed low-wage earners is also effectively unchanged since a similar study was previously conducted on earnings in 2018.
A low-wage earner is classified as an employee who earns two-thirds or less of the median gross hourly earnings in their country of work.
The median gross hourly earnings in the Republic in October 2022 was €20.30 – the 4th highest rate in the EU at the time – which would result in anyone earning €13.53 or less per hour before tax in Ireland being considered a low-wage earner.
The figures are based on the gross hourly earnings of all employees in businesses with 10 staff or more across all sectors of the economy excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing and public administration and defence.
The earnings include any overtime pay, shift premiums, allowances, bonuses and commission.
The report also shows that more women are low-wage earners than men across the EU.
In Ireland, 22.7 per cent of female employees were low-wage earners in 2022 compared to the EU average of 17.1 per cent.
The figures also reveal that 17.6 per cent of male employees in the Republic are low-wage earners – the 6th highest rate and above the EU average of 12.6 per cent.
The report shows low-wage earners accounted for 25.2 per cent of all employees aged under 30 years in the EU – approximately twice the rate of low-wage earners in older age groups.
It also highlights the lower the level of a person’s education, the higher the likelihood that they are a low-wage earner with 27.5 per cent of early school leavers classified as low-wage earners compared to 4.8 per cent of workers with a college degree.
The median monthly earnings in Ireland at the time was €3,323.
The report also shows that Ireland had one of the highest disparities in the EU in 2022 relating to high-wage earners.
It reveals that the 10 per cent best paid employees in Ireland earned 2.2 times as much as employees on the median gross hourly earnings rate.
Only high-earning workers in Cyprus, Bulgaria, Portugal and Romania had a wider gap in pay levels from average earners.
The latest figures show the proportion of low-wage earners varied significantly across EU member states in 2022.
The highest share was found in Bulgaria (26.8 per cent) followed by Romania (23.9 per cent), Latvia (23.3 per cent) and Greece (21.2 per cent).
In contrast, just 1.8 per cent of employees in Portugal are classified as low-wage earners followed by Sweden (4.1 per cent), Finland (6.5 per cent) and Italy (8.8 per cent).
Other countries where less than 10 per cent of workers are low-wage earners are Slovenia, France and Denmark..
