Estonia labor cost increase in Q2 2019 higher than EU average
Labor costs in Estonia grew by significantly more than the European Union average in the second quarter of 2019 (Q2 2019), Baltic News Service reports.
Whereas hourly labor costs in the EU as a whole rose by 3.1 percent in Q2 2019, in Estonia the figure was 8.3 percent, according to Eurostat data. The figure over the same period for the Eurozone was slightly lower than the whole EU at 2.7 percent.
Estonia was not alone in exceeding the European average – Latvia and Lithuania were in the same situation, along with Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
In the case of these last four, labor cost growth exceeded even Estonia's, reaching as high as 12.4 percent in Romania's case.
Austria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovenia and Spain also exceeded the average. The lowest increases were in Portugal (0.9 percent) and Malta (1.1 percent), BNS reports.
Editor: Andrew Whyte
