Financial sector workers earn more than double average salary

By Eleni Courea

FINANCIAL and insurance sector workers in Cyprus earn more than double employees in other sectors make, the EU’s statistical agency, Eurostat, said on Monday.

According to Eurostat, employees in these two sectors earn 106 per cent more than the national average wage in Cyprus which stands at €16.80 per hour.

A similar pattern is observed in Portugal (+167 per cent), Romania (+136 per cent), Latvia (+113 per cent), and Hungary (+110 per cent).

On the other hand, those employed in the European (EU28) tourism and food industries earn around 25 per cent less than the national average.

In Cyprus, the hourly wage for employees in these two sectors is 48 per cent less.

Cyprus is matched only by Ireland and Germany, where employees in the tourism and food industries are paid 49 per cent and 47 per cent less than average respectively.

The Eurostat report said that in 2014, the average wage across all sectors in the EU28 economies stood at €24.20 per hour, while employees in the euro area were paid significantly more at €29.30.

In Cyprus however, the average employee is paid €16.80 per hour.

The highest-paid Europeans are the Danish (€40.10 per hour), the Belgians (€38.00), and the Swedes (€37.30). At the lower end are the Lithuanians (€5.90), the Romanians (€4.10), and the Bulgarians with €3.40 per hour.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.