China Ranks 57th in Average Worker Wages
By wchung | 24 May, 2026

China’s workers earned the 57th highest wages among 72 nations surveyed by the United Nation’s International Labour Organization. Their earnings came to less than half of the $1,480 per month earned by the world’s average worker.

On an annualized PPP (purchasing power parity based on the purchasing power of $1 in the US) basis, the average worker earned nearly $18,000 a year, with workers in Luxembourg topping out at $49,000 a year. China’s average earnings is $7,872 a year. The study was based on 2009 data for 72 nations, with some of the world’s poorest nations omitted.

However, since 2009 China’s workers have been given hefty pay increases even as wages declined for much of the developed world due to the global financial crisis. A total of 21 regions across China raised their minimum wages during the first three quarters of 2011 by an average overall amount of 21.7%, according to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in late October. Consequently, China’s average wages are currently likely to be substantially higher relative to the rest of the world on a PPP basis.

“The worldwide level of economic development is in fact still pretty low, in spite of the huge affluence that we see in some places,” remarked Patrick Besler, an economist at the International Labour Organization.

Low labor costs mean businesses and the government take too much, said Zhang Chewei, deputy director of Institute of Population and Labor Economics at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. China’s workers have suffered from unfavorable wages during the past decade, said Zhang.

In 2011 China passed Japan in total GDP to became the world’s second largest economy. At its current rate of growth it is expected to overtake the US as the biggest economy around 2020. But because China’s population is about nearly four times that of the US, it is unlikely to catch up in average wages until around 2045 or later.