Average salary reached new high in 2018, at €888
The average monthly income increased by 3.74% last year, reaching €888. there are also increasingly fewer people with salaries below €600.
The good news is not only that the unemployment rate has been falling and job creation rising last year — salaries have also been increasing at a fast pace in 2018, reaching much more significant values than in the previous years.
In 2018, according to the data released this Wednesday by the Portuguese Office for National Statistics (INE), the average income of Portuguese workers increased by nearly 4% in comparison to 2017. Simultaneously, fewer people are being paid below the €600 line.
At a national level, in 2018, the net average income of employees stood at €888, which represents a 3.47% rise in comparison to the average income registered in 2017 of €856. This is the highest increase since 2011, in which the salaries rose by 3.8%.
Salaries are on the rise nearly in every corner of the country, but they have however dropped in the Azores islands. The Centre region and the metropolitan area of Lisbon recorded the highest values, both above 4%. Lisbon is again the region which presents the highest average, at €1,032.
The evolution of salaries in Portugal has been accompanied by a decrease in the number of people receiving less than €600 per month. Last year, out of the total of four million employees registered in Portugal, 109.5 thousand were being paid less than €310 a month, while 848.8 thousand people were paid between €310 and €600 a month.
At the beginning of 2019, the Portuguese minimum wage went up to €600.
These figures show that, last year, the proportion of employees getting paid below €600 per month had dropped significantly, representing 23.6% of the total of employees whereas in 2017 28% of the employed population was paid that amount.
On the other hand, there are more people getting paid higher salaries: most workers are on the €600-€800 pay grade (1,369 million employees, or 33.8% of the total employed population, up from 31.5% in 2017).
As for the number of workers on the €900-€1,200 pay grade, these increased as well to 533.7 thousand people, accounting for 13.2% of the total employed population, up from 12.8% in 2017. Those with salaries ranging from €1,200 to €1,800, also increased, by 0.6%, to 514.4 thousand employees, accounting for 12.7% of the total.
There are also 141.3 thousand employees being paid between €1,800 and €2,500 a month, 29.3 thousand people receiving from €2,500 to €3,000 a month, and at last, there were 37.6 thousand employees getting more than €3,000 income per month.
