Wage tax statistics 2010

The social position and age class of employees

With a share of 44.8%, white collar workers were the largest employee group. Slightly less than two fifths of employees (37.9%) were blue collar workers. Civil servants under contract accounted for 8.0%, and officials for 5.4%. 3.4% of all employees were apprentices and 0.5% of all employees had other pays (e.g. politicians).

About 27.5% of employees were aged between 41 and 50, while the 31 to 40 age group accounted for a slightly lower percentage (22.9%). Among employees with full-year earnings, 1.4% were aged over 60. Almost three quarters of these 40 362 employees were men (29 402), while only one quarter were women (10 960).

Full-year and partial-year earnings

Almost three quarters (73.4%) of all employees – slightly less than 3.0 million people – received pay throughout the entire year. Overall, they received 90.8% of the gross earnings of all employees. In contrast, more than one million employees were not employed for the entire year. This group predominantly comprised unemployed, people on maternity/paternity leave and holiday trainees, who were employed a limited period of time during the year under review, and people starting a new job. Of the roughly 2.3 million pensioners, some 94.9% drew a full year’s pension.

Gross pay and its distribution

A total of 529 612 employees – 3.3% more than in 2009 and 7.8% more than in 2008 – received gross earnings of €50 000 or more; 75.6% of these were men. As gross earnings increase, so does the proportion of men receiving them: of those employees with gross earnings in excess of €200 000, 91.3% were men. Some 2.3‰ of employees were in the top pay bracket. Almost one fourth (23.3%) of all employees (excluding apprentices) received a gross annual income of less than €10 000. It should be noted, however, that in the lowest gross pay levels, there were many employed persons working a low number of hours, part-time employees and employees who did not work for the entire year. One third (31.7%) of all employees (not including apprentices) earned less than €15 000 and 41.3% less than €20 000.

Gross pay per capita of full-time employees with full-year earnings

In the year under review, a total of 54.5% of all employees were employed full-time throughout the entire year. Annual per-capita gross pay in this group varied significantly depending on social position and region. The highest average gross income was achieved by persons in the category “other incomes” (for example earnings of full-time politicians, earnings of municipal council members). In this very small category (2 890 persons) men received an average gross income of €59 723, their female counterparts 60 755. Male white collar workers earned €58 223 on average. The corresponding figure for female white collar workers was €36 291. Male officials earned an average gross income of €55 091 and female officials €52 196. Male civil servants under contract achieved gross earnings of €43 313, their female counterparts €37 715. Among blue collar workers, men drew a gross wage of €30 907 on average, women €21 503. In 2010, the per-capita gross pay of men employed full-time throughout the entire year was €44 525, and for women €34 021.

The only Länder in which earnings exceeded the Austrian average (€40 865) were Vienna (€44 524) and Lower Austria (€42 257). The highest average gross earnings were recorded in Vienna’s first district (the city centre) with €83 034 (men: €100 830, women: €60 523), and outside of the federal capital in the Mödling district (€54 952, men: €63 250, women: €42 244). The lowest average incomes among men were drawn in the political district of Feldbach (€36 380) and among women, in Landeck (€27 244).

Extent of employment

The average gross annual earnings of employees who were employed for the entire year varied significantly based on working hours: among full-time employees, the figure for Austria as a whole was €40 865 (men: €44 633, women: €34 047), and among part-time employees, just €16 923 (men: €17 298, women: €16 848). Part-time employment concerns mainly women: some 44.3% were employed part-time. Women constituted around 77.1% of all part-time employees. Among men, the ratio of part-time to full-time employment was 1:7.4, while for women it was 1:1.2.

Part-time work varied depending on social position; it was rather prevalent among blue collar workers (women: 50%, men: 13%) and less frequent among white collar workers and civil servants under contract (women: 47% to 38%, men: 12% to 11%). The widest span between men and women was found among officials: just 1.4% of male officials worked part-time, while fourteen times as many of their female colleagues (19.8%) were in part-time positions. Persons in the category “other incomes” also displayed a high part-time rate: 55% of male and 56% of female persons in this group worked part-time. A comparison of the data for the years 2009 and 2010 reveals that overall employment increased by 1.2%. This rise primarily grounds on the increase of part-time jobs (+3.5%), while the number of full-time jobs (+0.3%) and of jobs with an unknown extent of employment increased less.

Economic branches

In the year 2010, some 55.3% of employees were recorded in just five ÖNACE sections, namely the combined sections O (“Public administration and defense; compulsory social security”) + P (“Education”) + Q (“Human health and social work activities”) and in ÖNACE sections C (“Manufacturing”) and G (“Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles”). ÖNACE sections F (“Construction”) and I (“Accommodation and food service activities”) accounted for 7.6% each. The sections N (“Administrative and support service activities”) and H (“Transportation and storage”) followed with a share of around 5.9% and 5.2% of all employees. In contrast, “Financial and insurance activities” accounted for just 3.3%, and “Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply” and “Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities” for a mere 1% each.

In 2010, most women worked in two economic branches: ÖNACE sections O (“Public administration and defense; compulsory social security”) + P (“Education”) + Q (“Human health and social work activities”) with almost 616 000 female employees, and ÖNACE section G (“Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles”), in which more than 354 000 females were employed. Most men worked in “Manufacturing” (ÖNACE C), where male employees totalled 476 000. The annual per-capita gross income of full-time employees with full-year earnings varied greatly between the different branches. For instance, the figure in ÖNACE K (“Financial and insurance activities”) was €60 796, while in “Accommodation and food service activities” (ÖNACE I) it was only around one third of this amount (€21 876).

Note: The brochure “Wage Tax Statistics 2010”, containing all tables, can be downloaded as a PDF file free of charge (in German only). Simply click the Publications sheet (see below).