Mean and median wage

Classic pita gyros per month

After contributions, before income tax. Gaps stay gaps: no interpolation.

• Minimum · 1976-2026
• Mean · 2000-2025
• Median (points) · 2006-2022

¹ 2006: different sector classification (NACE Rev. 1.1); not compared with later waves. ² 2022: new method (survey plus administrative data). Changes from the survey are measured 2010-2022, under one classification.

From 2000 to 2025 the mean loses −51.9% and the minimum −46.6%: the loss is not a minimum-wage phenomenon. From 2010 to 2022, under one sector classification, the median loses −41.0% against −39.7% for the minimum. Corrected 26 September 2026.

Gyronomics · gyronomics.gr · 2026.10.10-monthly-bulletin · CC BY 4.0

How to read it

The unit is the classic pita gyro, the one the Index measures: each year's price is restated in today's composition so like compares with like.

The minimum covers 1976-2026. The mean starts in 2000 and the median has 5 points, because that is where their sources stop. Nothing is interpolated or extended backwards.

They also stop short of the Index, for a reason. The mean reaches 2025, a year behind 2026. The median comes from a four-yearly survey published about two years after its reference year: after 2022, the next point covers 2026 and is not expected before 2028.

The conclusion does not hang on the unit. In era gyros, with no composition restatement, the same changes are −53.9% for the mean, −48.8% for the minimum, and −37.1% against −35.7% across the median's 2010-2022.

The same values as a table

¹ 2006: different sector classification (NACE Rev. 1.1); not compared with later waves. ² 2022: new method (survey plus administrative data). Changes from the survey are measured 2010-2022, under one classification.

The table starts in 2000, where the first of the two new wages starts. The years 1976-1999 have only a minimum wage; why the others are missing is on Gaps. The minimum wage payroll is broken down on Minimum Wage.

Where the fall came from

The index is a quotient, so every change has two causes the number itself hides. This splits how far the wage moved from how far the classic gyro price moved over the same period.

The fall is not a wage cut. From 2000 to 2025 the minimum moved +96.6% and the mean +77.0%, while the classic gyro price moved +268.3%. Both wages rose, just less than the price.

The gap between median and minimum is purely a wage story: from 2010 to 2022 both faced the same +60.0% price rise; the minimum moved −3.6% and the median −5.6%.

The identity holds on the unrounded quotient; the integer index in the table can differ by one rounding unit.

The spread around the median

The same survey publishes the first and ninth deciles: the lowest and highest tenth of full-time employees. Measured dispersion, in the same unit.

¹ 2006: different sector classification (NACE Rev. 1.1); not compared with later waves. ² 2022: new method (survey plus administrative data). Changes from the survey are measured 2010-2022, under one classification.

All three fell. From 2010 to 2022 the bottom tenth moved −43.5%, the median −41.0% and the top tenth −37.2%. The ratio between the ends went from 2.96x to 3.29x: the ends moved apart, because the bottom tenth lost more than the top.

This is not societal inequality. It covers only full-time employees in the surveyed sectors: no unemployed, part-time, self-employed or undeclared work.

Who, inside the same median

Men and women

¹ 2006: different sector classification (NACE Rev. 1.1); not compared with later waves. ² 2022: new method (survey plus administrative data). Changes from the survey are measured 2010-2022, under one classification.

From 2010 to 2022 the gap narrowed, from 10.4% to 9.9%. In gyros women moved −41.0% and men −41.3%: both fell, by almost the same amount.

This is NOT the official gender pay gap. The official one measures hourly earnings of all employees and for 2022 gives 13.5%, against 9.9% here. Two different quantities, not a disagreement.

Median by sex, same sector definition and full-time only. It also reflects different occupations, sectors and seniority, not pay for the same work.

Under 30

The young lost more. From 2010 to 2018 the under-30s moved −40.2% and the overall median −32.0%. Their share went from 73.6% to 64.7% of the median.

Median for full-time employees under 30. Age classes change definition between waves and 2022 publishes no age breakdown, so there is no comparable older class and no 2022 point.

What income tax takes off

The index stops before income tax, and the page declares that as a limit. For the mean wage we can measure it instead of asserting it, because the same source publishes the tax. For the minimum we cannot yet, which is why the two do not share a chart.

• 2000: 973 before tax, 907 after — a −6.8% difference.
• 2025: 467 before tax, 399 after — a −14.6% difference.

The burden grew over time, so the convention does not merely lift the levels: it UNDERSTATES THE FALL. After tax the mean loses −56.0% from 2000 to 2025, against −51.9% before tax.

What this page does not say

• It is not a measure of inequality. The distance between the lines also depends on each source's population. It is not the gap between two people.
• Before income tax, and that is not neutral. Income tax is near zero at the minimum wage and is not at the median, so the two new lines are an upper bound rather than take-home income.
• A level is not a rate. A median wage also moves with workforce composition: it can rise because low-paid jobs disappeared.
• The Index does not change. The published Index remains the minimum wage. It is read from the same series here, never recomputed.

Checking the figures

• Correction, 26 September 2026: the mean has a new source and the median a new comparison span. Until then the mean came from Eurostat's earn_nt_net. From 2024 its figures are no longer compiled by the OECD but by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), and Eurostat flags a break in series. Its gross earnings come out above the OECD's by 6.7% in 2024 and 11.6% in 2025, so the 2000-2025 comparison crossed the break. Every year now comes from the OECD (Taxing Wages): 511 classic gyros in 2024 instead of 546 and 467 in 2025 instead of 522, and from 2000 to 2025 the mean loses −51.9% instead of −46.3%. For 2000-2023 the two sources' annual gross earnings are at most 0.57 € apart and no index changed. The median: until then the page measured the 2006-2022 change and said it lost −43.3% against −38.1% for the minimum. The 2006 point, however, uses a different sector classification (NACE Rev. 1.1) from the later waves, so the comparison crossed a change of definition. It is now measured 2010-2022: the median −41.0% and the minimum −39.7%, a distance of 1.3 points instead of 5.1. The deciles, sex and under-30 comparisons now use the same span (the under-30s up to 2018, since 2022 has no age breakdown). All five points stay in the table. 2022 is marked for its new method without cutting the comparison.
• The coverage checks out. The Greek statistical office's release on the same survey describes "sectors B-S excluding O" — exactly the definition we request. Release of 20.12.2024. That release publishes no median, only sector means.
• The mean has a second witness, and they differ on level. The mean line comes from a modelled calculation. The same survey that gives the median also gives a measured mean: in 2022 it gives 684 gyros against 594, which is 15.2% higher. Over 2010-2022, with one sector classification in the survey, the fall is −37.4% against −41.2%. The changes differ by 3.8 percentage points. The sources cover different populations. The earlier point remains in the table with its classification-break note.
• More years: tried, and no. The OECD also publishes a second mean wage, from national accounts for the whole economy, starting in 1995, 5 years earlier. It cannot be chained: its ratio to the mean line drifts from 0.83 in 2000 to 0.71 in 2025, so splicing would manufacture a trend rather than extend one. The mean line starts in 2000, as does Eurostat's earn_nt_net, which gives the same figures up to 2023. The median has an earlier point only under a different sector definition.

Sources

Mean · OECD Taxing Wages · DF_TW_COU

Modelled single person without children at 100% of the OECD average wage (Taxing Wages). The average wage is an ELSTAT estimate for full-time employees, built from the Structure of Earnings Survey and labour cost indices. A mean on a stylised profile, not a measured distribution. Sectors ISIC Rev. 3.1 C-N until 2007 and ISIC Rev. 4 B-N from 2008, per the Greece chapter of Taxing Wages 2023. That edition noted that the years from 2019 would be revised with SES 2022; whether the figures used here already include that revision has not been verified. Source read: 2026-09-25, SHA-256 25b9068b37cc.

Median · earn_ses_annual · B-S_X_O

Full-time employees in enterprises with at least ten employees, industry, construction and services except public administration. Four-yearly survey; this sector definition has no 2002 observation for Greece. Source last updated: 2026-02-09.

The contribution rate is the one the minimum wage already uses. The OECD publishes the mean's contributions separately, which makes it an independent witness: largest divergence 0.00 points. The figures are counted in classic gyros.