Global Wage Comparison
(shop supervisors, shop sales assistants, cashiers and ticket clerks)
This global wage comparison is based on the sample of 5472 respondents who replied to the questionnaire in the WageIndicator survey during years 2009-2011.
For comparison purposes, two indices are presented:
I. 
Big Mac Wage expresses
a wage converted into number of Big Macs that employees can afford to buy.
II. Wage in $ adjusted by purchasing power parity (PPP) expresses wage in dollars that have the same purchasing power as current U.S. dollar has in the USA. The second index is more complicated than the first one because it takes into account more than 1 commodity.
Tab.: Median gross and net hourly wage in $ adjusted by PPP [1] and Big Mac wage [2].
| Country | Median hourly wage in $ adjusted by PPP | Big Macs per hour of work | |||||
| Shop supervisors | Shop sales assistants | Cashiers and ticket clerks | Shop supervisors | ||||
| Gross | Net | Gross | Net | Gross | Net | ||
| Belgium | 13.8 | 9.9 | 12.2 | 8.9 | 11.8 | 8.6 | 2.6 |
| Denmark | 12.8 | 8.5 | |||||
| Finland | 17.9 | 12.8 | 12 | 9.1 | 3.6 | ||
| Germany | 12.7 | 8.8 | 12.6 | 9 | |||
| Netherlands | 13.8 | 10.2 | 12.8 | 9.5 | 13.1 | 9.6 | 2.5 |
| Spain | 10 | 7.6 | |||||
| Sweden | 16.3 | 12 | 14.9 | 11 | 2.3 | ||
| United Kingdom | 11.6 | 9 | |||||
| Czech Republic | 8.5 | 6.9 | 6.1 | 4.8 | 5.9 | 4.7 | 1.4 |
| Hungary | 4.8 | 3.2 | |||||
| Poland | 6.2 | 4.5 | |||||
| Argentina | 9 | 7.2 | 5.7 | 4.8 | 5.7 | 4.3 | 0.9 |
| Brazil | 4 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 2.1 | 2.5 | 2 | 0.6 |
| Chile | 3.6 | 2.8 | |||||
| Mexico | 6 | 4.4 | 3.6 | 2.9 | 2.7 | 2.4 | 1.2 |
| Belarus | 6.1 | 5.1 | 3.9 | 3.3 | 3.7 | 3.1 | |
| Kazakhstan | 3.7 | 3.1 | |||||
| Russian Federation | 6.7 | 5.6 | 4 | 3.4 | 1.7 | ||
| Ukraine | 6.2 | 5.5 | 3.3 | 2.6 | |||
| South Africa | 6 | 5.7 | |||||
Note: Because of different price levels in the countries median hourly net and gross wage is presented in dollars that have the same purchasing power as current U.S. dollar has in the USA.
Statistics are reported for the occupations with at least 20 observations. Moreover "Big Macs per hour of work" are only reported for countries with published Big Mac prices.
Source: WageIndicator 2009-2011; IMF World Economic Outlook Database (September 2011); The Economist (July 2011)
[1]. IMF’s estimates of the PPP exchange rates for the year 2011 were used (http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/02/weodata/index.aspx)
[2]. Big Mac prices were collected in July 2011 (http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/big-mac-index)