Germans lead in wages among foreigners

Some foreigners who work in the Czech Republic have a higher average wage than employees with Czech citizenship. On average, Germans, Slovaks and Russians and Romanians are better off than Czechs in the Czech Republic.

This statistic may be a bit misleading, though, as the numbers of these foreigners are small, and many of the foreign workers are in management roles.

The highest average wage of Kč 105,332 in the Czech Republic in 2017 was reached employees with German citizenship, according to an analysis of income and expenditure of households in the Czech Republic in 2017 issued by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

The comparison of salaries by citizenship showed Slovaks ranked second with an average 2017 wage of Kč 37,609. Also ahead of Czechs were citizens of the Russian Federation at Kč 36,469 and Romania at Kč 33,956.

Romanians also considerably outperform Czechs in non-manual professions, where their average wage was Kč 57,167. Bulgarians in non-manual professions get Kč 53,505.

Czechs in the same category earned an average of Kč 37,000 last year.

The average monthly wage of employees with Czech citizenship in all professions was Kč 30,865 last year.

The lowest wages were registered by people from Mongolia at Kč 22,969, Ukraine at 23,733 and Vietnam at Kč 22,100. They mostly do manual or low-skilled work.

Analysts say the difference in wages is due to different types of positions.

Raiffeisenbank's chief economist Helena Horská told daily Mladá fronta Dnes that German employees are typically employed in higher-level jobs.

The parent company will send its own managers to oversee its Czech branch.

German companies, for example, prefer to send managers from Germany, especially when a branch is starting up.

Data from used by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. shows that there are just 1,200 employees with German citizenship in the Czech Republic. Slovaks have some 65,000 citizens registered as workers. Ukrainians account for 24,500.