As of February this year, the State Statistical Office is going to change the methodology used in calculating the average salary in the country.
Up until now, the Office used a sample of 8,000 companies to calculate the average salary, whereas, as of next month, that will be done based on the tax returns filed with the Tax Administration – says Vesna Pantelic from the State Statistical Office.
The current methodology has been in use since 1963, and is based on the monthly survey that contained the data about employees and their income (the so-called RAD-1 methodology) whereby selected companies fill out forms about the number of their employees and salaries they have paid out in a given month.
The average net salary in November last year was 45,475 dinars, while the highest average salary was in Belgrade – 58,902 dinars. The lowest were in Sumadija and Western Serbia where the average salary stood at 40,696 dinars.
Pantelic also explain that, so far, the statistical sample consisted of mostly large companies because they have a high number of employees and are more capable of providing relevant statistical data regarding their workers and salaries.
According to the State Statistical Office, there are currently 87,000 companies operating in Serbia that employ close to 1.5 million people, and 165,000 small businesses that employ around 300,000 people.
When asked how the rest of the world calculates average salary, Pantelic said that other countries used the same methodology but the difference was that they did not have that many unregistered workers like Serbia which income could not be ascertained.
“In February, we are going to publish the statistical data generated based on both methodologies, old and new, but we don’t expect much difference in generated results. The difference will be probably between 1% and 2%”, Pantelic added.
(eKapija, 13.01.2018)
https://www.ekapija.com/news/1999856/rzs-menja-nacin-obracuna-prosecne-plate-u-srbiji
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