Average wages - 1st quarter of 2020

In the Q1 2020, the average gross monthly nominal wage per full-time equivalent (FTE) employee in the national economy increased by 5.0% compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. In real terms, it grew by 1.4%. The median wage was CZK 29 333.

In the Q1 2020, the average gross monthly nominal wage¹⁾ (hereinafter only as ‘the average wage’) per FTE employee in the national economy was CZK 34 077, which is by CZK 1 610 (5.0%) more than in the corresponding period of 2019. In the aforementioned period of 2020, consumer prices grew by 3.6% and thus wages increased by 1.4% in real terms. The wage volume grew by 4.1% and the number of employees decreased by 0.9%.

Compared to the previous quarter, the seasonally adjusted average wage in the Q1 2020 increased by 1.1%.

The median wage was CZK 29 333 and increased by 5.8% compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. The male median wage reached CZK 31 790 and the female one was CZK 26 723. Eighty per cent of employees earned wages within the interval from CZK 15 761 to CZK 53 850.

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¹⁾ The average gross monthly wage is a share of wage funds (including extra pay for overtime work, bonuses, compensation of wages, etc.) for one employee per month. Therefore, this does not indicate what wage one concrete employee has. The earnings structure statistics, in which data on earnings of respective employees are available, show that about two thirds of employees have a wage below the national average.

The median wage represents a value of an employee wage in the middle of the wage distribution. It means that one half of the wages is lower and the second half of the wages is higher than the median wage. Unlike the average wage, which is calculated based on background data from enterprise reports, the median must be derived from a statistical-mathematical model based on a sample survey, because enterprise questionnaires contain only aggregated data for a whole enterprise or an organization.