Average monthly salaries in Poland's voivodships

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fyi

Mazowieckie voivodship, where Warsaw is located, boasts the highest average salary among workers in the private sector, according to Poland's statistical office GUS, which made its calulations based on data from the first three quarters of last year.

4,600 zloty Brutto???

Thats not more than 1,100 Euro Brutto .. why are those Warszawiaki still so arrogant??? >.<

and...the cost of living here is measured in pln, not Euros.

exactly, and the most common wage would be closer to half that. CEO's are included in average wage calculations.

Hasty reading produces silly mistakes. :):):):)

Don`t worry, stay tuned, after a year or two you will be an expert on Polish culture issues. :):):):):)

Hi! I'm surprised that you don't understand that such notion of "average" salary does not reflect reality, most especially in a country like Poland with huge differences. A few people in Poland make tons of money but most of them don't (I read many times that more than 62% of Poles make less than 2,500 (brutto). I personally mingle with top income people but I also come across alot of others barely making 2,000/month. Besides, if the salary was around 1,000 euros in Poland, we would not have so many Poles working at minimum wages in the west. I know it's like this in all countries but for God's sake, people need to think and look around instead of taking for granted what the government says or what they find on the net ;)

agreed mate! actually these areas (Katowice & Warsaw) could be areas where there are top CEO, directors and other big 'fish', the salary is being divided among the inhabitants around there.

what i mean here is that there are many people earning a lot and the distribution, when it comes to the workforce still stays strong. Just need to do some Maths and you will get the reality.

for example, in London, there are many big 'fishes' so when the mean income is calculated, they still come out on top. because of the gap compared to other counties.

Well, some people might change their mind and move to these places, however, be careful as you are not aware of the cost of living yet. I bet any Polish person can say that in these places, the cost of living would be signinficantly higher.

Local: I agree with you 100% but as I said, an average does not reflect reality (a median is more accurate), especially in a country like Poland where the gap between the rich and the poor is that tremendous.

Of course there are "big fish" - often true sharks - but let's not forget about all the "small fish" more numerous and who struggle in order to survive.

PS: I happen to know Katowice very well since I own a house there and I can assure you that there is a lot of poverty there, much more so than in Warsaw (where I live) for instance.

PPS: If we consider the % of taxpayers per tax brackets, we realize that very few people are rich in Poland (or they cheat and don't report what they make ;)) and that's the huge majority are poor. Another factor to prove what I'm saying: emigration of Poles, in general to take the jobs that locals don't want to take (you see the reality in GB and I can tell you that in France for about 20 years, almost all cleaning ladies and almost all construction workers are Polish. Needless to say, if people go abroad, leave their families, to take lowest skilled jobs abroad, it's because of poverty in their home countries. Poles don't go to the West to clean houses for "fun" or for cultural exchange ;)

You hit a nail on the head here.
A LOT of small and even medium companies in Poland cheat on wages. They pay minimum "on paper" so that their costs are lower, and pay the rest "under the table".

So just looking at taxes you won't have true reflection either.
Another way of looking at it would be at what Poles spend, although I can see few issues with this method as well...
Statistics can be very misleading when looking at country like Poland.

yes, but this is the entire point of the article. The larger cities have a higher average salary so when I get knocked down for claiming that the average wage in Warsaw is 4,500 pln- by those who say the average in Poland is 3,800pln- this article proves me to be accurate.

And this makes sense. The majority of countries have people with higher incomes living in larger cities. This is not a Polish phenom.

The fact is that Polish has a very spread out population. It is not like, let's say, Canada where the majority of the population live in larger cities. There are loads of towns and villages and I am willing to bet that if you were to add up the population of only the major cities- they would equal or even be more than the population of the towns and villages combined. The population is spread out.

So, because so many people live in smaller towns and make less money- they are making the national average on the lower end of the scale. But the fact is- the cost of living is lower in towns and villages and the work force is not as well trained so they make less.

What is the average salary of let's say- Lublin and Lodz as compared to Warsaw or Krakow?

What is the median salary in Poland?

Salary is always a good indicator, more important is quality of life. Now both Krakow and Wroclaw are nice cities although personally I would not want to live there, there is only one real cosmopolitan city in the full sense of the word in Poland and that is ' Warsaw' the second tier are mickey mouse tourist traps. It is no wonder most people gravitate towards ' Warszawa'


If they are paid cash under the table how would you monitor this?

No-one has mentioned the 100,000 ++++ people who work in Warsaw mon-fri or commute daily and are registered outside of Warszawa.