Wage tax statistics 2019 are based on approximately 10.9 million pay slips issued to employees and pensioners. These data are collected by the Austrian tax authorities and also used for the compilation of wage tax statistics. Wage tax is a special form of income tax and is collected via deductions from the taxpayer’s wage or pension. The wage tax scale is a progressive scale.
In the year 2019 under review, a total of 7 155 815 taxpayers were registered, of whom 4 681 056 were employees and 2 474 759 were pensioners. Compared with 2018, the number of taxpayers increased by 1.3%. Gross earnings rose by 4.4% to a volume of €212 271.1 million. A total of 3 595 500 taxpayers or 50.2% were men, 49.8% or 3 560 315 were women. The men got 61.1% of gross earnings and contributed 69,5% of the tax revenue. 24.3% of all taxpayers were not liable for paying wage tax as they were below the taxation threshold. 5.6 million taxpayers had only one pay slip (employment or pension) in the year under review, while 1.6 million had more than one pay slip.
With a share of 47.9%, white collar workers were the largest employee group. Slightly less than two fifths of employees (37.8%) were blue collar workers. Civil servants under contract accounted for 8.1%, and officials for 3.5%. 2.3% of all employees were apprentices and 0.4% of all employees had other pays (e.g. politicians).
About 25.0% of employees with full-year earnings were aged between 41 and 50, while the 31 to 40 age group accounted for a slightly lower percentage (23.9%). Among employees with full-year earnings, 3.1% were aged over 60. Almost three quarters of these 103 913 employees were men (75 887), while only one quarter were women (28 026).
Almost three quarters (72.5%) of all employees – about 3.4 million people – received pay throughout the entire year. Overall, they received 90.7% of the gross earnings of all employees. In contrast, 1.3 million employees were not employed for the entire year. This group predominantly comprised unemployed, people on maternity/paternity leave and holiday trainees, who were employed a limited period of time during the year under review, and people starting a new job. Of the roughly 2.5 million pensioners, some 94.4% drew a full year’s pension.
A total of 918 1493 employees – 8.0% more than in 2018 – received gross earnings of €50 000 or more; 72.4% of these were men. As gross earnings increase, so does the proportion of men receiving them: of those employees with gross earnings in excess of €200 000, 88.2% were men. Some 3.5‰ of employees were in the top pay bracket. More than one fifth (20.8%) of all employees (excluding apprentices) received a gross annual income of less than €10 000. It should be noted, however, that in the lowest gross pay levels, there were many employed persons working a low number of hours, part-time employees and employees who did not work for the entire year. Three tenths (27.2%) of all employees (not including apprentices) earned less than €15 000 and 34.5% less than €20 000.
In the year under review, a total of 50.3% of all
employees were employed full-time throughout the entire year. Annual
per-capita gross pay in this group varied significantly depending on
social position and region. The highest average gross income was achieved
by the very small category
The only Länder in which earnings exceeded the Austrian
average (€51 207) were Vienna (€53 656), Lower Austria (€52 864)
and Vorarlberg (€
The average gross annual earnings of employees who were employed for the entire year varied significantly based on working hours: among full-time employees, the figure for Austria as a whole was €51 207 (men: €54 571, women: €44 449), and among part-time employees, just €22 299 (men: €22 932, women: €22 140). Part-time employment concerns mainly women: some 52.0% were employed part-time. Women constituted around 72.6% of all part-time employees. Among men, the ratio of part-time to full-time employment was 1:4.8, while for women the number of part-time employees exceeded the number of full-time employees (ratio 1:0.88).
Part-time work varied depending on social position;
it was rather prevalent among blue collar workers (women: 57%, men:
19%) and less frequent among white collar workers and civil servants
under contract (women: 55% to 42%, men: 18% to 9%). The widest span
between men and women was found among officials: just 1.9% of male officials
worked part-time, while twelve times as many of their female colleagues
(22.6%) were in part-time positions. Persons in the category “other
incomes” also displayed a high part-time rate: 51% of male and 59%
of female persons in this group worked part-time. A comparison of the
data for the years 2018 and 2019 reveals that overall employment increased
by 1.5%. This rise grounds on the increase of part-time jobs
In the year 2019, some 53.4% of employees were recorded in just five ÖNACE sections, namely the combined sections O (“Public administration and defense; compulsory social security”) + P (“Education”) + Q (“Human health and social work activities”) and in ÖNACE sections C (“Manufacturing”) and G (“Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles”). ÖNACE sections I (“Accommodation and food service activities”) and F (“Construction”) accounted for 8.1% and 7.4%. The sections N (“Administrative and support service activities”) and H (“Transportation and storage”) followed with a share of around 6.9% and 5.1% of all employees. In contrast, “Financial and insurance activities” accounted for just 3.3%, and “Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply” and “Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities” for a mere 1% each.
In 2019, most women worked in two economic branches: ÖNACE sections O (“Public administration and defense; compulsory social security”) + P (“Education”) + Q (“Human health and social work activities”) with 723 000 female employees, and ÖNACE section G (“Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles”), in which 380 000 females were employed. Most men worked in “Manufacturing” (ÖNACE C), where male employees totalled 526 000. The annual per-capita gross income of full-time employees with full-year earnings varied greatly between the different branches. For instance, the figure in ÖNACE K (“Financial and insurance activities”) was €75 295, while in “Accommodation and food service activities” (ÖNACE I) it was only around one third of this amount (€29 026).
Note: The brochure “Wage Tax Statistics 2019”, containing all tables, can be downloaded as a PDF file free of charge (in German only). Simply click the Publications sheet (see below).