In 2020, the average hourly labour cost in the EU was €28.9. In 2020, the highest hourly labour costs among EU Member States, expressed in euros, were recorded in Luxembourg (€47.7), Denmark (€45.7), and Belgium (€40.5), and the lowest in Bulgaria (€6.6), Romania (€8.2) and Hungary (€9.8).
The highest levels recorded for Luxembourg were 7.3 times the lowest recorded for Bulgaria, while in 2016, the highest levels recorded for Denmark were 9.5 times the lowest (for Bulgaria), EuroStat reports.
Disparities are significantly smaller when hourly labour costs are expressed in purchasing power standard (PPS), a measure that accounts for price differentials across countries. In PPS, hourly labour costs range from 11.9 in Bulgaria to 36.1 in Luxembourg, 3 times the former value.
