The proportion of low wage earners in Malta is above both the EU 27 average and that of the euro area, statistics from Eurostat show.

Low-wage earners are defined as those employees earning two thirds or less of the national median gross hourly earnings. Hence, the thresholds that determine low-wage earners are relative and specific to each member state.

In Malta’s case, this low wage threshold works out at €5 per hour. The rate varies from country to country – from €1 in Bulgaria to €10.2 in The Netherlands.

The proportion of low-wage earners in Malta is estimated at 18.3%, which is above both the EU27 average (17.0%) and the euro area average (14.8%).

The proportion of low-wage earners among employees amounted to 17.0% in 2010 in the EU27. This proportion varied significantly between member states, with the highest percentages observed in Latvia (27.8%), Lithuania (27.2%), Romania (25.6%), Poland (24.2%) and Estonia (23.8%), and the lowest in Sweden (2.5%), Finland (5.9%), France (6.1%), Belgium (6.4%) and Denmark (7.7%).

There are large differences between men and women regarding the proportion of low-wage earners.

In the EU27 in 2010, 21.2% of female employees were low-wage earners, compared with 13.3% of male employees. In all member states, except Bulgaria, there was a larger share of female employees than male who were low-wage earners.

In Malta, 22.4% of female employees were low-wage earners while 15.6% of male employees were low-wage earners.

The highest proportions for women were registered in Cyprus (31.4%), Estonia (30.1%), Lithuania (29.4%), Germany and Latvia (both 28.7%) and the United Kingdom (27.6%), and the smallest in Sweden (3.1%), France (7.9%), Finland (8.0%) and Denmark (9.8%).

But some news of consolation comes from the next item which relates low wage earning to the level of education.

The level of education plays an important role: the lower the level, the higher is the likelihood of being a low-wage earner.

In the EU27 in 2010, 29.0% of employees with a low education level were low-wage earners, compared with 19.3% of those with a medium level and 5.8% of those with a high level.

Data is classified according to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED): low education corresponds to ISCED levels 0-2 (pre-primary, primary and lower secondary education); medium education corresponds to ISCED levels 3 and 4 (upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education) and high education corresponds to ISCED levels 5 and 6 (tertiary education).

In Malta, 29.5% of employees with a low level of education were low-wage earners. While this is slightly above the EU27 average, the next two categories are under the EU average.

Only 11.3% of employees with a medium level of education are low-wage earners, compared to an EU27 average of 19.3%.

And, best of all, in Malta only 2.7% of employees with a high level of education are low- wage earners, compared to 5.8% in the EU27.

More than half of employees with a low level of education in Germany (54.6%) and Slovakia (51.5%) were low-wage earners, and almost half in Romania (49.4%).

The type of contract also has a significant impact. In the EU27 in 2010, 31.3% of employees with a contract of limited duration were low-wage earners, compared with 15.7% for those with an indefinite contract.

In Malta, 27.7% of employees with a contract of limited duration were low-wage earners, while 17.5% of employees with an indefinite contract were so.

In all member states, except Estonia and Cyprus, the pattern was the same. The largest proportions of low-wage earners among employees with a contract of limited duration were observed in the Netherlands (47.9%), Poland (42.5%), Germany (38.0%), Bulgaria (36.9%), Hungary and the United Kingdom (both 36.4%).