The average monthly basic salary of employees for the third quarter of 2020 was estimated at €1,536, according to data published by the National Statistics Office.
The highest basic salary was recorded in the Financial and insurance activities sector. The average basic salary in this sector stood at around €2,200.
Average monthly salaries varied from €994 among persons employed in elementary occupations to €2,197 among managers.
Employment
There were 259,731 people in employment in the third quarter of 2020, almost at par with the previous quarter.
The data shows that 59.4% of people aged 15 and over were in employment during this period.
The activity rate for the quarter under review was estimated at 77.3 per cent with the highest rate recorded among persons aged 25 to 54 (87.9%).
On average, out of every 100 persons aged between 15 and 64 years, 74 were employed. The male employment rate for this age bracket was 80.8 per cent while that for females stood at 65.5 per cent.
The largest share of employed persons was recorded among persons aged between 25 and 34 years, for both males and females.
Self-employed persons accounted for 16.1 per cent of all persons with a main job.
The majority of employed persons worked on a full-time basis and amounted to 229,690. A further 30,041 had a part-time job as their primary employment.
Results show that, on average, full-timers usually worked 42.2 hours while part-timers worked 22.5 hours per week.
In the third quarter of 2020, employed persons actually worked 34.0 hours per week, 1.6 hours less when compared to the previous year.
Unemployment
The unemployment rate for the third quarter of 2020, stood at 4.6 per cent. The largest share of unemployed persons was recorded among persons aged 25 to 74 years.
Females accounted for 59.3 per cent of total inactive persons and those over 65 years made up the highest share of the inactive.
Over 40 per cent were inactive because they had reached retirement age or were taking up early retirement.
Almost half of the persons aged 15 years and over had attained a low level of education. By contrast, 33.2 per cent of the employed had a tertiary level education.