Exploring statutory minimum wages in the EU

At a conference on the European Pillar of Social Rights in January 2017, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told delegates that every EU Member State should have a minimum wage.

As part of its ongoing investigation into the implementation of minimum wages across the EU, Eurofound has just published its annual topical update on the subject. The update gives information on minimum wage coverage across the EU, examines statutory minimum wage levels, and describes how Member States determined the minimum wage level for 2017. In 22 out of 28 EU Member States, a generally applicable statutory minimum wage exists. However, the level of this minimum wage varies greatly from one country to another: the monthly rate in Luxembourg is over eight times that in Bulgaria. In six Member States, there is no statutory minimum wage: Austria, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Italy and Sweden. However, in all of these countries except Cyprus, the minimum wage level is de facto set in (sectoral) collective agreements. From the data, it can be seen that the minimum wage grew more over the year
preceding 1 January 2017 than in the previous year.