Estonia, compared to the European Union and its region, is lacking economically in regards to: minimum wage, general government dept, gender gap, unemployment rate, and population density. Minimum wage applies to minimum amount of money a person can earn working full time. Minimum wage is shown by Euro/month because most countries decide the minimum wage through a monthly rate. Data from the Eurostate web site shows that Estonia has been relatively low in regards to minimum wage against the region. Estonia’s minimum wage in 1999 was only 80.32 Euros per month; the minimum wage in 2010 is set at 278.02 Euros a month. The lowest in the region for 2010 is Bulgaria where the full time works make at least 122.71 Euros a month. Estonia is the 6th lowest country in regards to minimum wage. The highest minimum wage in the region is Luxemburg whose citizens with minimum wage jobs receive 1,682.76. The United States is in between Estonia and Luxemburg with 872.32 Euros a month. This means that people working minimum wages in Estonia makes 1.74 Euros or roughly $2.43 an hour (Eurostat).
The European Union finds the general government debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP.) The general government debt is defined as “the general government sector comprises the subsectors of central government, state government, local government and social security funds . . . . Debt is valued at nominal value” (Eurostat). The Eurostat sight shows the he general government debt average across 27 european countries was 62.8 percent of the GDP in 2005 and no average statistics have been reported since then. Estonia is on the low end of general government debt which is a good thing—in 2005 Estonia was at 4.6 percent and in 2009 a slight increase to 7.2 percent. Estonia has the lowest general government debt. The highest in the European Union is Italy with more debt than GDP with 116.0%. Eurostat’s table showed the highest general government debt worldwide was Japan in 2004 with 164.0%.
One concern the EU finds is the gender gap in wages for Estonians in the workforce. “Women in Estonia suffer from EU’s worst gender pay gap” explains that in Estonia women get paid 30 percent less than males. The is also a totem pole of discrimination against women in wages and the person at the lowest section of the totem pole are Russian women. On average in the EU women get paid 17 percent less than man. The article explains that Estonia gender pay gap is the worst in all of Europe. Women also are pushed into lower wage jobs “like healthcare and education while men dominate the more lucrative private sector” (Women). One person termed it as a simple “case of double standards” (Women).
One thing that Estonia is ranking in at a high level is unemployment. Estonians population is currently 1.3 million people and a staggering 75,700 of them are without a job. “At the end of July there were 75 780 registered unemployed persons in Estonia and the registered unemployment rate was 11.7%” (Castro). With comparison to Estonians region the unemployment rate is very high. The article “Estiona: ‘Unemployment rate is high compared to other EU countries’” shared that in March 2010 Estonia’s harmonized unemployment rate was 19,0% compared to the average EU country harmonized unemployment was 9.6%. The government has projected that the unemployment rate will decrease by the end of the year by 4-5 percentage points (Hõbemägi).
