It's astonishing to see that public sector positions are still "permanent" even in 2025.
Academic tenure for a whole country.
Having been living in Lithuania for a year, I did notice that in many charts the income numbers of Lithuania and Greece are very similar. Which got me thinking...
One similarity I can mention is that lots of small businesses ask to be paid in cash there as well (I wonder why).
At the same time, the number of expensive cars I can notice in parking lots and streets, doesn't align with a "low" income they show on paper. They definitely make more than what I can see in those charts.
In Greece, I cannot say I have a clear proxy for it, but I have a feeling there might be a similar discrepancy.
Effectively, my question is, how is the "shadow economy" reflected in those charts?
Curious to know if it's measured in any way.
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Also, I can see a very clear correlation of "years of experience" with salary.
Is it that prevalent that the amount of money someone makes depends almost exclusively to how many years they have worked, as opposed to, you know, how good they are at what they do?
Coming from having worked in several northern European countries, this is very strange.
There, salary depends almost exclusively to what you can negotiate based on your skills, not at all to how many years you can show in a certain position. Plenty of cases I can show where a new skilled engineer makes more than a manager with 5-10 years at the same team.
And that's how it should be in a healthy economy.
I'm curious on what makes even the private sector stick to that pattern. To reward loyalty to the company?
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Thank you once again for the interesting post!
(I'd suggest, if you can, to "explain" more on each chart. Some times I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. It would be useful if you give a bit more of a back story to what a chart is trying to say)
Very interesting!
It's astonishing to see that public sector positions are still "permanent" even in 2025.
Academic tenure for a whole country.
Having been living in Lithuania for a year, I did notice that in many charts the income numbers of Lithuania and Greece are very similar. Which got me thinking...
One similarity I can mention is that lots of small businesses ask to be paid in cash there as well (I wonder why).
At the same time, the number of expensive cars I can notice in parking lots and streets, doesn't align with a "low" income they show on paper. They definitely make more than what I can see in those charts.
In Greece, I cannot say I have a clear proxy for it, but I have a feeling there might be a similar discrepancy.
Effectively, my question is, how is the "shadow economy" reflected in those charts?
Curious to know if it's measured in any way.
---
Also, I can see a very clear correlation of "years of experience" with salary.
Is it that prevalent that the amount of money someone makes depends almost exclusively to how many years they have worked, as opposed to, you know, how good they are at what they do?
Coming from having worked in several northern European countries, this is very strange.
There, salary depends almost exclusively to what you can negotiate based on your skills, not at all to how many years you can show in a certain position. Plenty of cases I can show where a new skilled engineer makes more than a manager with 5-10 years at the same team.
And that's how it should be in a healthy economy.
I'm curious on what makes even the private sector stick to that pattern. To reward loyalty to the company?
---
Thank you once again for the interesting post!
(I'd suggest, if you can, to "explain" more on each chart. Some times I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. It would be useful if you give a bit more of a back story to what a chart is trying to say)
Thanks for the lengthy comment, Antoni. Very interesting thoughts and great feedback.