Slovaks’ wages failed to keep pace with inflation in the second quarter of 2026, cutting their purchasing power for the first time in two and a half years.
The average gross monthly salary reached EUR 1,707, up by 3.2%, or EUR 53, from a year earlier, the Statistics Office reported on September 2.
After inflation was taken into account, however, wages fell by 0.5% in real terms. It was the first decline after 10 consecutive quarters of real wage growth, and the first since the third quarter of 2023.
Nominal wage growth was also the slowest in six years.
The sharpest fall was in public administration, where average gross wages dropped by 4.8% even before inflation was taken into account. In real terms, they fell by 8.2%.
Marian Kocis, an analyst at Slovenska sporitelna bank, said that the comparison was affected by unusually strong wage growth a year earlier. Average wages had jumped by 8.8% in the second quarter of 2025, helped by one-off bonuses in the public sector, making this year’s comparison particularly unfavourable.
Education and water supply were the only other sectors where nominal wages fell.
Employees nevertheless gained purchasing power in 12 of the 19 sectors monitored by statisticians. Real wages rose most strongly in real estate, by 5.9%, followed by mining and quarrying, at 4.6%.
Industry, which employs a significant share of Slovakia’s workforce, recorded real wage growth of 1.2%, while real wages in trade edged up by 0.3%.
Kocis also cautioned that the official real-wage figure did not fully reflect government assistance with household energy costs.
Rising energy prices, particularly heating costs, have contributed significantly to inflation this year, but government energy vouchers have cushioned the impact on household budgets. Kocis estimated that purchasing power would have been roughly flat in the second quarter if this assistance were taken into account.
He expects nominal wages to rise by close to 5% over 2026 as a whole and real wages by around 1.3%.
Bratislava was the only one of Slovakia’s eight regions with an average salary above the national figure, at EUR 2,012 a month.
At the other end was the Presov region in eastern Slovakia, where the average was EUR 1,359. Despite having the country’s lowest average wage, it recorded the strongest real wage growth, at 0.9%.
Real wages rose in only three regions – Presov, Zilina and Nitra – and were unchanged in Trencin. They fell in the other four, with the Kosice region recording the largest decline, at 2.7%.
Despite the second-quarter setback, workers were still better off over the first half of 2026. Average real wages for the six-month period were 0.9% higher than a year earlier. (The Slovak Spectator)