May 7, 2024
Today at
05:01
An hour of work actually performed cost Belgian employers an average of 27.44 euros last year, the HR services group Securex calculated. There are major differences between the sectors.
On average, a Belgian company paid 27.44 euros for one hour worked in 2023 (gross salary, social security contributions and other labor-related costs). That was 9.1 percent more than in 2022. The increase is largely explained by the indexation of wages in many sectors in January 2023. The granting of purchasing power premiums and a higher bicycle allowance also had an impact, says Els Vanderhaegen, legal expert at Securex.
Securex calculated the ‘real’ wage costs per hour worked by dividing the total wage costs of almost 21,000 companies by the number of hours actually worked by all employees. This method evens out all differences between different types of contracts. The calculation method is different from a similar study last year, which only looked at employees with a permanent contract.
Chemistry and metal
Wage costs are highest in Brussels (31.45 euros), followed by Flanders (29.10) and Wallonia (25 euros). The highest wage costs for white-collar workers, approximately 45 euros per hour, are paid in the chemical sector and in metal, mechanical and electrical construction (joint committees 207 and 209). The latter sector includes many large industrial and tech companies, such as Siemens, Bekaert and Barco. The chemical industry also has the highest wage costs for workers (about 36 euros per hour).
Companies pay the lowest wage costs for agricultural workers (17.85 euros) and for white-collar workers in food retail – mainly the stores of supermarket chains (22.54 euros).
Previous calculations by Securex already showed that the differences in wage costs also vary widely between individual companies. The 10 percent of companies with the highest wage costs pay an average of 46.80 euros per hour worked, compared to only 10.60 euros at the 10 percent of companies at the bottom of the ladder.
