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The average wage is a measure for the financial well-being of a country’s inhabitants. A similar measure is GDP per capita. However, GDP (on the income side) = compensation of employees + gross operating surplus/mixed income + taxes on production – subsidies. This way, various components increase the GDP that are not directly contributing to the well-being of citizens. In particular, the gross operating surplus consists of corporate profits, which is money that companies save, reinvest, or pay to their shareholders in the form of dividends (who may be located outside the country). Even in the case of reinvestment, much of the money moves offshore, especially with larger multi-national companies. In order to measure the part of the income generated by the domestic economy that is actually earned by the employees, it is better to break down the GDP to its components and consider only wages and salaries.

Methodology

The data presented represents full-time average annual gross wages and salaries in the entire economy of selected Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. The figure is derived by taking the national accounts aggregate of wages and salaries, dividing them by the national accounts aggregate for average wage and salary employment, and multiplying it by the ratio of average weekly working hours per full-time employee to average weekly working hours for all employees. The resulting estimates correspond to average annual wages per full-time equivalent dependent employee. The calculations were made using the latest data from the OECD. Wages and salaries are a component of GDP on the income side.

Since PPP conversion is a widely accepted way to compare income (including wages), the data listed are in PPPs (for private consumption).

According to the OECD, the figures here may not match that of other sources for a variety of reasons; National Accounts (NA) wages include both full-time and part-time workers at a full-time equivalent rate. This is likely to reduce the level of NA wages (as compared to average earnings from only full-time jobs) since average wages for part-time workers, even at a full-time equivalent rate, are lower than average earnings from full-time jobs; The lower level of NA wages for certain countries such as Germany, as compared to average earnings reported from some well-known surveys, probably reflects the inclusion of employees in mini (part-time) jobs and apprenticeships. Low-paid apprentices are counted as employees in national accounts and labour force surveys, but are omitted from structure of earnings surveys; Some alternative estimates, for instance those based on labour cost surveys, are limited to establishments with ten or more employees. These surveys tend to overstate average wages, relative to the more comprehensive coverage of NA wages.

Rank	Country	Disposable USD 2011	Disposable USD growth	Compulsory deduction	Gross USD 2011
1	United States	42,050	242	22.8%	54,450
2	Ireland	41,170	531	18.9%	50,764
3	Luxembourg	37,997	-1,477	28.1%	52,847
4	Switzerland	35,471	-57	29.4%	50,242
5	Australia	34,952	835	22.3%	44,983
6	United Kingdom	33,513	-1,272	25.1%	44,743
7	Canada	32,662	-648	22.7%	42,253
8	Norway	32,620	913	29.3%	46,153
9	South Korea	31,051	1,341	12.3%	35,406
10	Netherlands	29,269	-544	37.8%	47,056
11	Austria	29,008	-177	33.4%	43,555
12	Sweden	28,301	480	25.0%	37,734
13	Denmark	27,974	-335	38.6%	45,560
14	Japan	27,763	724	21.0%	35,143
15	France	27,452	93	28.0%	38,128
16	Spain	26,856	-466	21.9%	34,387
17	Finland	25,747	146	29.8%	36,676
18	Belgium	25,642	25	42.2%	44,364
19	Israel	24,225	147	18.9%	28,804
20	Germany	24,174	379	39.9%	40,223
21	Italy	23,194	-562	30.8%	33,517
22	Greece	21,352	-2,039	18.8%	26,295
23	Portugal	17,170	-2,044	24.5%	22,742
24	Czech Republic	15,115	-191	23.0%	19,630
25	Slovakia	14,701	-328	22.9%	19,068
26	Poland	14,390	116	28.3%	20,069
27	Estonia	13,737	-444	20.7%	17,323
28	Hungary	12,843	52	35.0%	19,437