Average wages in Europe vary greatly. The most impressive average annual salary is earned by residents of Switzerland, according to Eurostat data. The lowest wages are paid in Turkey and Bulgaria, and only Romania separates Croatia from the bottom of the list.

In Switzerland, the average net annual salary last year was 85,528 euros, which is significantly higher than the next countries on the list – Iceland, where the average is 53,885 euros, and Luxembourg with 49,035 euros. According to the Eurostat report, Norway and the Netherlands also have annual net salaries of over 45 thousand euros, reports Forbes Croatia.

All of these countries are well above the European average, which is a much more modest 28,217 euros.

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Croatia is one of the five weakest countries in Europe. At the bottom of the list are Turkey with an average annual salary of 8,968 euros and Bulgaria with 9,355 euros. In third place is Romania with a salary of 11,105 euros, while Croatians receive a few hundred euros more – 12,330 euros. Hungary is also at the lower end of the scale with an average salary of 12,456 euros.

Below the European average are Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Slovenia, Estonia, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and Slovakia.

France, Sweden and Belgium are slightly above the European average. The data for the United Kingdom is from 2019, when the average salary was €35,783, so the comparison is only indicative.

Interestingly, one of Europe’s biggest economic powers, Germany, has been overtaken by Ireland, Denmark and Austria in terms of better salaries.

Euronews also analysed salaries according to marital status – single or married, with or without children. The changes in the rankings when these criteria are applied do not make a dramatic difference.

According to all these criteria – single people without children, working couples with two children, working couples without children – Croatia is at the bottom of the list, in fourth place from the bottom.