The hourly labor cost in Romania’s economy, not including the agriculture and public administration sectors, increased by 11% to EUR 6.9 in 2018, from EUR 6.2 in 2017, Eurostat informed.

Filtering out the influence of the exchange rate, the labor cost in Romania soared by 13.3% to RON 31.9.

It was the second year in a row that Romania posted the highest rise in labor costs among the 28 EU member states, after the 17.1% advance in 2017. However, Romania remains one of the countries with the lowest labor costs in the EU. Only Bulgaria has a lower cost than Romania (EUR 5.4).

The labor cost increased by 2.7% on average in the European Union and by 2.2% in the euro area. In absolute terms, the average cost of labor in the EU was four times higher than in Romania (EUR 27.4) in 2018 and even higher (EUR 30.6) in the euro area. The EU states with the highest hourly labor costs in 2018 were Denmark (EUR 43.5), Luxembourg (EUR 40.6), Belgium (EUR 39.7), Sweden (EUR 36.6), the Netherlands (EUR 35.9 ), and France (EUR 35.8 ).

editor@romania-insider.com

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