Abyssal differences in wages between regions reach tens of thousands of crowns

In Prague, for example, an employee earns on average up to half as much as in the region with the worst salary rating. This follows from data recently published by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. According to them, while in Prague last year the average income in private companies was 57,817 crowns gross per month, in the Karlovy Vary region it was only 38,350 crowns. The difference was almost 19,467 crowns.

Employees in the Olomouc region had the second lowest average income, 39,508 crowns. Which is a difference compared to Prague of 18,309 crowns. On the contrary, the second highest income was in the Central Bohemia region, although there was also a noticeable difference compared to Prague: employees earned an average of CZK 46,209.

Jurečka: The minimum wage could be 27,400 crowns in five years

Homemade

Relatively strong income inequality between individual regions is a reality, according to economists. “There are two strong regions – Prague with the Central Bohemian Region and then the South Moravian Region with Brno – where wages are significantly higher than in the rest of the country,” said Miroslav Novák from Akcenta CZ. According to him, this is due, among other things, to the location of the headquarters of large companies and significant investments.

Patria Finance chief economist Jan Bureš agrees with this. “It is an offer of employment opportunities. Larger firms in service sectors with often higher added value are more concentrated in more populated locations. On the one hand, they have a number of downstream services available there, as well as an available skilled workforce,” he explained.

Logically, other companies also move to the location. As a result, localities are created where wages are higher and lower.

“Regions that do not attract talent, where there is no higher education, there is poorer transport accessibility, there are problems due to the slowdown of some industries, of course they also suffer in terms of income,” Bureš pointed out.

Poor in the capital

On the other hand, for example in Prague, according to Novák, the dispersion of wages is significantly higher than in the rest of the country. “There are more people working for relatively low wages. The average is pushed up by people with significantly high incomes,” he noted.

Last year, almost 68 percent of people in the capital did not reach the average, while in the Moravian-Silesian region there were “only” 61.5 percent. The tenth of people with the lowest incomes in Prague earned a maximum of 21,604 crowns gross, while the richest tenth earned CZK 103,144 and more.

However, the cost of living in Prague and Brno is slightly higher than in the rest of the country. For example, with services or rents or real estate. “On the other hand, the prices of goods are comparable to other regions. On the contrary, in some districts, for example, some goods may be more expensive than in Prague, because there is less competition there,” Novák added.

When it comes to salary differences in the public sector, they are somewhat smaller than in private companies. Even so, Prague leads with an average salary of CZK 54,672, but in the worst Zlín region, the average is already CZK 43,719.

The reason for the minor differences is that salaries in the public sector are largely unified due to the given tariffs. “You can often be disadvantaged in the public sector in positions that are associated with higher pay in the private sector. As a state employee, you often don’t get that,” added Bureš.

Differences between professions

The same inequality as in the aggregate data can be traced to a number of professions. For example, a teacher at a secondary school or the second level of elementary school earned an average of 55,034 crowns in Prague. In central Bohemia it was almost two thousand less, and in southern Bohemia the wage was CZK 51,709.

General nurses with a specialization in Prague’s public hospitals and medical facilities earned an average of 71,461 crowns per month last year, in the Central Bohemia region it was 59,039 crowns and in the Ústí region 61,817 crowns.

However, Prague is not always at its best. For example, medical specialists here in the same facilities had an average of 108,686, but in the Ústí Region 146,866 crowns. In South Bohemia it is CZK 123,915.

Saleswomen earned an average of 32,674 crowns in Prague last year, but 29,663 crowns in the Karlovy Vary Region. The worst situation was in the Moravian-Silesian Region, where saleswomen had to make do with an average of barely 27,000.

Truck drivers in the capital took home over 34,000 CZK, 35,500 in Ostrava and 34,600 in the South Moravian Region.

Computer application programmers earned an average of 89,253 crowns in the region around Brno, 90,743 crowns in the capital city of Prague, but only 63,571 crowns in the Moravian-Silesian Region.