Georgian National Statistics Office to develop new methodology to calculate average monthly salaries

The National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat) is developing a new methodology to calculate average monthly salaries starting next year, said Geostat Director Gogita Todradze yesterday.

Starting next year, we will have the opportunity to process administrative data and to offer public average salaries calculated by the median mean,” said Todradze.

Geostat used to calculate average monthly salaries using the arithmetic mean, although the median method is better to use when the data is significantly different from each other.

The issue is that if only the salaries of the most highly paid people are raised, this does not affect the median salary, though it increases the mean salary.

Geostat used to receive salaries data not from the Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance (which records income of citizens), but from an independent survey conducted by Geostat, which collected data from about 15,000 businesses and organizations in Georgia, including large corporations, government agencies, insurance companies, banks and credit unions.

Geostat did not use individual data (that is, the salary of individuals based on their position) to calculate the median salary, but the number of employees and their salaries.

Average monthly earnings (calculated by using arithmetic mean) in Georgia increased by 76.3 GEL ($25.8/€23.2) in the second quarter (Q2) of 2019 compared to the same period of the previous year and amounted to 1,179.8 GEL ($398.5/€359.1), reports the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat).