With €520 gross, Slovakia has the seventh lowest minimum wage in the EU, indicates an analysis by the Slovenská Sporiteľna bank. Following the proposal of the Labour Ministry and increasing it by €60 to €580 would move the country up by three places, placing it ahead of Poland, Estonia and Latvia. According to Lenka Buchláková, an analyst from Slovenská Sporiteľna, approximately 4% of Slovaks, which is almost 220,000 people, earn a minimum salary. Out of them, 70% are women.
In the EU, five countries do not have a minimal wage, namely Denmark, Italy, Austria, Finland and Sweden. In the other 22, countries its amount ranges from €286 in Bulgaria to €2,071 in Luxembourg. On average, the average minimum salary is around €600 in the east of the EU and rises westwards to around €1,400 in the northwest of the Union.
