Dublin workers fourth best paid, study finds

WORKERS IN Dublin earn the fourth highest net wages globally after New York, Geneva and Zurich, according to a cost of living study.

Swiss bank UBS examined 73 international cities in its Prices and Earnings 2009 report and found average hourly wages in Dublin of €14.30 ($18.70), after taxes and social security contributions.

Changes in taxation and levies introduced in the April budget are excluded as UBS had completed its research in March.

In the cities surveyed, workers paid an average of 21 per cent in tax and social welfare contributions. However, Dublin workers were paying just 15 per cent.

Taxes and social security led to average deductions of 27.6 per cent for staff in western European cities. Employees in western Europe are also paid three times more on average than staff in eastern Europe. UBS says this explains the two-way economic traffic of globalisation: “jobs go East while workers emigrate to the West”.

Dublin was ranked the 10th most expensive city in the world in which to live, down two places on its ranking on the 2006 version of this report. London has fallen from being the second most expensive city to the 21st, due to the financial crisis and depreciation of sterling.

The relatively high net wages enjoyed by workers in Dublin means they have the fourth highest net purchasing power, according to the report.

An example of this purchasing power can be seen by how many hours an employee must work to purchase an item available in all cities surveyed, an iPod Nano.

Dublin employees can buy this item after just 10 hours working. Only employees in New York or Sydney have to work fewer hours for it. Employees in Mumbai, India, have to work the longest, needing 177 hours.

It takes Dublin employees just 15 minutes to earn enough for another ubiquitous consumer item, the Big Mac, compared to a global average of 37 minutes.

Food costs in Dublin have risen over the last three years, with a monthly family shop costing €364. This makes Dublin the 10th most expensive city for food purchases, up six places since 2006.

UBS said a standard basket of 95 goods and 27 services remains approximately 35 per cent cheaper in eastern European cities than those in Western Europe.

Employees spend an average of 1,745 hours a year at work in western Europe with those in Dublin working 1,807 hours annually.

According to the UBS survey, employees now work an average of 58 hours more a year than in 2006, in part due to the inclusion of Doha and Cairo into the study.

Irish workers have an average of 21 days of paid annual leave, on top of bank holidays, compared to an average of 25 in western Europe. In the US and Asia, employees received between 10 and 12 days paid leave.

Among the 14 job types surveyed for the report were school teachers, bus drivers, mechanics, with engineers being the highest qualified group.