AVERAGE WAGE (USD) MONTHLY

Recently, United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO) published the average monthly salary or wage for the whole world & the average for 72 countries. For the whole world, the average is USD1,480 per month.
The figures are published for the first time. It’s a rough figure based on data from 72 countries, omitting some of the world’s poorest nations. In addition, all figures are adjusted to reflect variations in the cost of living from one country to another.
To make comparisons in living standards across countries, economists use specially adjusted exchange rates. The figures in this calculation are given in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) dollars. One PPP dollar is equal to 1 US dollar spent in the US. But a US dollar goes further in some countries than in others.
The limitations of the data are.

• The data (for 2009) covers 72 countries, and misses out some big ones, Nigeria, for example.
• Only wage earners are counted – not the self-employed or people on benefits.
• In some countries, the data is incomplete – in South Africa, for example; it leaves out public sector workers and agricultural workers, while in Uganda, it covers only the manufacturing sector.

The table below is the rank of average monthly salary or wage in the world. Malaysia was at number 45 out of 72 countries with average monthly salary of USD961 per month.

Rank	Country	Average Wage (USD)
1	Luxembourg	4,089
2	Norway	3,678
3	Austria	3,437
4	United States	3,263
5	United Kingdom	3,065
6	Belgium	3,035
7	Sweden	3,023
8	Ireland	2,997
9	Finland	2,925
10	Korea (Republic of)	2,903
11	France	2,886
12	Canada	2,724
13	Germany	2,720
14	Singapore	2,616
15	Australia	2,610
16	Cyprus	2,605
17	Japan	2,522
18	Italy	2,445
19	Iceland	2,431
20	Spain	2,352
21	Greece	2,300
22	New Zealand	2,283
23	South Africa	1,838
24	Malta	1,808
25	Israel	1,804
26	Czech Republic	1,786
27	Croatia	1,756
28	Turkey	1,731
29	Qatar	1,690
30	Hong Kong (China)	1,545
31	Poland	1,536
32	Slovakia	1,385
33	Hungary	1,374
34	Macedonia	1,345
35	Bosnia & Herzegovina	1,338
36	Estonia	1,267
37	Russian Federation	1,215
38	Jamaica	1,135
39	Lithuania	1,109
40	Argentina	1,108
41	Latvia	1,098
42	Serbia	1,058
43	Chile	1,021
44	Botswana	996
45	Malaysia	961
46	Belarus	959
47	Romania	954
48	Bahrain	917
49	Panama	831
50	Mauritius	783
51	Brazil	778
52	Macau (China)	758
53	Kazakhstan	753
54	Bulgaria	750
55	Colombia	692
56	Ukraine	686
57	China	656
58	Mexico	609
59	Georgia	603
60	Azerbaijan	596
61	Egypt	548
62	Thailand	489
63	Armenia	471
64	Dominican Republic	462
65	Moldova (Republic of)	438
66	Mongolia	415
67	Syrian Arab Republic	364
68	Kyrgyzstan Republic	336
69	India	295
70	Philippines	279
71	Pakistan	255
72	Tajikistan	227