What is a regular salary in Norway? This is what the statistics tell us

Ragnhild Heyerdahl

foreignworkers@lomedia.no

Imagine a regular man and a regular woman who work every workday and receive their salary from an employer. They do not make much money, nor do they make particularly little. Rather something in the middle; an ordinary salary.    

How much would you guess they make a month? What is a regular salary in Norway? Let’s look at the 2020 statistics for gross monthly earnings – earnings before tax deductions.   

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Average earnings  

According to Statistics Norway (SSB), the average monthly earnings in Norway are 48.750 kroner (NOK).   

Men earn on average a little more than women. Average earnings for men are 51.630 kroner and for women 45.190 kroner.  

Of course, there are differences from one occupation to another and from one industry to another. Whilst a waiter would on average make 29.850 kroner per month, a financial broker on average has monthly earnings of 96.150 kroner.    

The average earnings are affected by the fact that some earn a lot more than others. Thus, it is wise to look at some other statistics.    

Another measure of a «regular» salary is the median earnings. By looking at all earnings in ascending order, the median is the earnings in the middle.  

The median earnings in 2020 were 44.150 kroner per month, a little lower than the average earnings. The median earnings are also a little lower for women than for men: 42.710 kroner for women compared with 45.580 kroner for men.   

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Women earn less  

High salaries are more common among men than women. In the 10 per cent of jobs with the highest salary, men hold three out of four positions. Similarly, more women work in the lowest-paid jobs.  

Out of 121 occupations that SSB has looked at, women have higher median earnings in only 16 of them. One of these is school assistant, where women last year had median monthly earnings of 33.760 kroner, while men had median earnings of 30.690 kroner. On the opposite end of the scale, women Chief Financial Offisers (CFO) had median monthly earnings of 69.580 kroner – almost 17.000 kroner less than men in the same positions.     

On average, men get paid more in bonuses than women, and they get paid more in irregular supplements per month, according to SSB.   

How much do the bosses earn? 

An average monthly executive pay is 71.270 kroner, according to SSB. 

Last year, a top manager in public administration (state administration, the county municipality, or the municipality) had monthly earnings of 98.950 kroner on average, while a CEO made 83.030 kroner on average. 

Looking at different industries, it is not surprising to find managers in oil and gas extraction on top, with average monthly earnings of 108.230 kroner. Managers within hotels, restaurants and retail earn a lot less. On average, a hotel manager earns 47.210, while a retail manager earns 51.360 kroner.

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