Average monthly salary rises to GEL 1202– GeoStat
By Levan Abramishvili
Tuesday, March 19
In the fourth quarter of 2018, the salaries rose in almost every sector. Especially high salaries were present in the following industries:
Vocational, scientific and technical positions – GEL 2144.9 (yearly rise 0.6%)
Building – GEL 1956.4 (yearly rise 1.4%)
Financial and insurance services – GEL 1902.0 (yearly rise of 7.3%)
The average salary for women amounted to GEL 906.0, while men received 1468.5 on average. Therefore, the yearly growth compiled GEL 46.5 and 81.1, respectively. In almost all industries the salary of men exceeded that of women’s.
The aforementioned statistics are misleading, to say the least. Those that are well-informed about the job market in Georgia know well that GEL 1200 is a salary that most employed people would dream of.
The statistics don’t take into account the difference between the highest paid jobs and the lowest paid jobs. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia switched to a free market economy and the restructuring processes and privatization caused the population to become extremely polarized into the rich and the poor.
The polarization gives an average result of a decent salary when in reality, most people don’t earn half of that amount.
On average, people working in retail don’t earn more than GEL 300; while people in education, especially school teachers, earn around GEL 400-500.
The report also doesn’t take into account people working in a so-called shadow economy, which includes all economic activities that are hidden from official authorities for monetary, regulatory, and institutional reasons. According to a study published by the International Monetary Fund last year, „the three largest shadow economies are Zimbabwe with 60.6, Bolivia with 62.3 and Georgia with 64.9“.
A study of an average salary would be appropriate in a country like Austria, where the rate of the shadow economy is only 8.9%. Since activities that are hidden from the authorities account for more than half of the economy, such statistics can’t possibly be representative of the real situation.
Another important aspect of the published statistics is the difference between the salaries of men and women. If the difference between low-skilled and high-skilled jobs, along with the unpaid work that women do were taken into account the difference would become even wider.
The primary contributors to the gender wage gap are work hours, industrial composition and employment in the state sector.
A high degree of gender segregation in industries is also characteristic for Georgia, similar to other transition and developing countries.
Lower-earning men are mostly employed in the building industries, which are characterized by higher wages than the nursing and caretaking activities, which are dominated by women. This also accounts for the differences in salaries.
It is also noteworthy that Georgia lost a good portion of its women workforce in the 1990s to immigration. Economic changes that took place made women more redundant than men. The jobs that women traditionally performed in food and textile industries were closed down. Making it harder for women to be competitive in the job market with their high professional qualifications. The hardships that the economic transition bought forced women to search for jobs elsewhere, so they became caretakers and nannies in Western countries.
Taking all of these points into account, the official average salary can seem high, but it can’t be considered a true representation of the real conditions in the country.