Wages, pensions highest in Estonia

TALLINN - Estonia has not only the highest wages in the Baltic countries, but also the highest pensions, according to a financial survey of Baltic households by SEB Group economists, reports Nozare.lv. In the second quarter of this year, monthly wages in Estonia increased an average 1.2 percent year-on-year, reaching 822 euros. In Lithuania, wages fell 5.4 percent to 595 euros, and in Latvia by 6.3 percent to 632 euros.

Estonia is the first Baltic country where wages have resumed growing.
Estonia also reports the region’s highest retirement pension, at 305 euros - unchanged compared to the second quarter of 2009. Latvia and Lithuania reduced pensions so they could cope with increasing budget deficits. However, Latvian pensioners were paid the withheld amounts in spring 2010 after the Constitutional Court ruled that the government’s decision to reduce pensions was against the Constitution.

The amount of pensions currently paid in Latvia still exceeds the average amount of the existing pensions, which means that average pension amount continues to increase in Latvia. The average pension in Latvia reached 250 euros in the second quarter this year, an increase of 1.6 percent on the second quarter of 2009.

Lithuania has the smallest pensions in the Baltic countries, at 216 euros, which is 8 percent less than in the second quarter of 2009.