TOP 10 Countries by Real Wage Growth (2020–2025)
Real wages show how fast workers’ purchasing power grows after inflation. Using ILO and OECD wage series, deflated by national consumer price indices, we rank countries by their average annual real wage growth between 2020 and 2025.
All figures are expressed as average yearly growth in real (inflation-adjusted) wages per employee. Values are rounded and should be read as indicative, based on the latest public data available as of early 2025.
How this ranking is built
For each country we take official time series of average wages per employee (from ILO, OECD or national statistical offices), deflate them by consumer prices and compute a real wage index.
- Base year for the index is set close to the pre-pandemic level (2019–2020).
- We calculate compound annual growth of real wages over 2020–2025.
- The table shows the ten economies with the fastest sustained growth in real wages.
Key takeaways at a glance
- Several Central & Eastern European economies lead the ranking.
- The United States and Canada stand out among advanced economies.
- A group of OECD middle-income countries (Chile, Israel, Korea) also show solid gains.
| Rank | Country | Avg annual real wage growth 2020–2025 (% per year) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lithuania | +1.8 |
| 2 | Slovenia | +1.6 |
| 3 | Poland | +1.5 |
| 4 | United States | +1.2 |
| 5 | Chile | +1.1 |
| 6 | Israel | +1.0 |
| 7 | Korea, Rep. | +1.0 |
| 8 | Canada | +0.9 |
| 9 | Australia | +0.8 |
| 10 | Czechia | +0.8 |
How far above 2019 are real wages in 2025?
To interpret the growth rates, it helps to look at index levels. In Table 2 we fix 2019 = 100 as a pre-pandemic baseline and show where real wages stand in 2025 for each of the top-10 countries.
An index of 109 in 2025 means that average real wages are roughly 9 % higher than in 2019 after adjusting for inflation.
| Country | Real wage index 2019 | Real wage index 2025 (2019 = 100) |
|---|---|---|
| Lithuania | 100 | 109.3 |
| Slovenia | 100 | 108.3 |
| Poland | 100 | 107.7 |
| United States | 100 | 106.1 |
| Chile | 100 | 105.6 |
| Israel | 100 | 105.1 |
| Korea, Rep. | 100 | 105.1 |
| Canada | 100 | 104.6 |
| Australia | 100 | 104.1 |
| Czechia | 100 | 104.1 |
Charts: real wage trajectories and ranking
The line chart below shows how real wages evolved from 2015 to 2025 in six leading countries. The bar chart summarises their average annual real wage growth over 2020–2025.
The tables and charts above are based on official wage statistics and international compilations. Below are key primary sources that can be used to reproduce or update the figures.
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ILO — Global Wage Report 2024–25Flagship report with latest estimates of global and regional real wage growth, including 2023–2024 recovery after the inflation shock.https://www.ilo.org/…/GWR-2024_Layout_E_RGB_Web.pdf
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ILO — Global Wage Report 2022–23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wagesProvides detailed evidence on how real wages fell into negative territory in many countries in 2022, forming the starting point for the 2020–2025 comparison.https://www.ilo.org/…/publication/wcms_862569.pdf
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ILO — Global Wage Report series (overview)Portal for the full time series and methodological notes behind the Global Wage Report, including country-level data on average wages and real wage indices.https://www.ilo.org/resource/other/global-wage-report-series
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OECD — Real wages continue to recover (2025)Analytical note on real wage dynamics in OECD countries up to Q3 2024, with harmonised series for wages and prices by country.https://www.oecd.org/…/real-wages-continue-to-recover_3a8a464b.pdf
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OECD — Real wages regaining some of the lost ground (2024)Earlier OECD update documenting how real wages in many advanced economies were still below late-2019 levels, useful for setting the 2019 baseline.https://www.oecd.org/…/real-wages-regaining-some-of-the-lost-ground.pdf
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OECD — Average annual wages (dataset)Core dataset on nominal average wages per employee in OECD countries, used together with CPI series to construct real wage indices.https://data-explorer.oecd.org/…DSD_EARNINGS%40AV_AN_WAGE
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Our World in Data — Nominal wages, consumer prices and real wagesExample of how real wage indices are constructed by combining wage series with inflation, used here as a methodological cross-check for the index calculations.https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nominal-wages-consumer-prices-and-real-wages-in-the-uk-since-1750
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U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics / FRED — Median usual weekly real earnings (LES1252881600Q)High-frequency series for U.S. real earnings, used to validate the direction and magnitude of the U.S. real wage index over 2019–2025.https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q
