Oman tops in real wage growth in Arab world

These trends show that global real wage growth dropped sharply during the post-2008 economic crisis, recovered in 2010, but has since decelerated.

In the Middle East, wages appear to have advanced by 3.9 per cent, but only by 0.9 per cent in Africa, however the data for these regions is still incomplete.

Tajikistan topped the world in terms of growth of annual wages with an average of 14.4 percent, followed by Zambia with an average 12.1 per cent, while Sri Lanka and Jamaica came at the bottom in terms of average wages that fell by 4.2 per cent, followed by Greece, with a decline of 3.6 per cent.

Even this modest growth in global wages was driven almost entirely by emerging G20 economies, where wages increased by 6.7 per cent in 2012 and 5.9 per cent in 2013.

The average wage annual growth in Britain fell by 1 per cent, while it rose in Turkey by 4 per cent and China by 9 per cent.

Wage growth around the world slowed in 2013 to 2.0 per cent, compared to 2.2 per cent in 2012, and has yet to catch up to the pre-crisis rates of about 3.0 per cent, according to the report.

By contrast, average wage growth in developed economies had fluctuated around 1 per cent per year since 2006 and then slowed further in 2012 and 2013 to only 0.1 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.

Comparing how wages have changed in different regions of the world Among developing economies, the report notes vast differences between regions.

For example, in 2013, wages grew by 6.0 per cent in Asia and 5.8 per cent in Eastern Europe and Central Asia but only 0.8 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.