Health care personnel's wages

Average – arithmetic average.

Average hourly basic wage – base wage, i.e. gross wage paid in March pursuant to the piece, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly wage rate determined in an employment contract or legal act. For calculating the hourly wage, the monthly wage is divided by the number of all working hours (excluding overtime). The hourly base wage is the “pure wage” without regular additional remunerations, additional remunerations for work in the evenings, in the night, on weekends and national holidays and for overtime.

Average hourly gross wage – includes the basic wage and regular additional remunerations, additional remunerations for evening work, night work, working on days off and national holidays and for overtime. The wage is divided by all working hours (including overtime).

Average monthly basic wage – gross wage paid in March based on the piece, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly wage rate determined by an employment contract or legal act. Does not include additional remunerations.

Average monthly gross wage – includes the basic wage and regular additional remunerations, additional remunerations for work in the evenings, in the night, on weekends and national holidays, for overtime, and other regular additional remunerations. This also includes non-regular additional remunerations (quarterly and annual bonuses as well as other non-regular achievement and value based remunerations, paid in March).

County – location of health care provider. It is classified according to the Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK). (see classifications and lists).

Full-time employee – a person whose working week amounts to 40 hours or less (e.g. residents until end of the year 2012 and radiology and pathology department etc. employees according to the regulation of the Government of the Republic, valid until July 1, 2009) according to internal work regulations.

Health care provider or health care facility – a legal person whose principal or ancillary activity is to provide health care services. Health care providers must have an activity license issued by the Health Board (Health Care Board until 01.01.2010).

Independent health care provider – health care provider that is not an agency of another provider or its branch.

Median – the central member of a variation sequence, which divides workers into two equal groups, i.e. half of the employees receive wages that are equal to or lower than the median and the other half receive wages equal to or higher than the median.

Part-time employee – a person whose schedule is based on partial working days or partial working weeks/months.

Quartiles – divides the number of data points into four equal parts. The first quartile (lower quartile) is defined as the middle number between the smallest number (minimum) and the median of the data set, 25% of the data is below this point. The second quartile is the median of data set, 50% of the data lies below this point. The third quartile (upper quartile) is the middle value between median ja the highest value (maximum) of the data set, 75% of the data lies below this point.

Type of hospital – seven types of hospitals are distinguished on the basis of provided health care services: regional hospital, central hospital, general hospital, local hospital, special hospital, rehabilitation hospital and nursing care hospital. The local hospital was introduced in 2003 (see classifications and lists).

Type of provider of health care services – health care providers are divided into the following types: hospitals, family doctor's offices, specialist health care providers, dental care providers, emergency medical care providers, rehabilitation care providers, diagnostics providers, nursing care providers and other providers (see classifications and lists).

The aim of the wage survey is to provide a detailed overview of the average hourly and monthly wages of health care personnel across different occupation groups and types of the health care providers. The wages of health care workers have been analysed annually since 2002. In the initial years of the survey, data were only collected from hospitals, but since 2006 the survey includes all health care service providers.

The data is collected from health care providers that have been issued activity licenses for the provision of health care services, pursuant to the Health Services Organisation Act and the derived Regulation of the Minister of Social Affairs.

The data is collected using the report form “Hourly wages of health care workers”, which shall be submitted by all independent health care providers, irrespective of the type of ownership or legal form. Independent health care providers submit aggregate reports on all of their subsidiary divisions/branches. The data is collected each year for March. Service providers shall submit reports to the National Institute for Health Development (NIHD) via the online data collection platform A-veeb by April 15.

The average monthly gross wages have been given in full-time units to enable a comparison of different wages and salaries, irrespective of the length of working time.

When interpreting the results it is important to know that the basis of the wage can be an hourly wage or a fixed monthly wage, and the number of working hours in March differs through the years. Number of working hours in March:
2006 - 184
2007 - 176
2008 - 160
2009 - 176
2010 - 184
2011 - 184
2012 - 176
2013 - 160
2014 - 168
2015 - 176
2016 - 176
2017 - 184
2018 - 168
2019 - 168
2020 - 176
2021 - 184
2022 - 184
2023 - 184

Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK)

This classification is used upon submission of regional statistics. Regional health care statistics are submitted by 15 counties. Information about Tallinn and Tartu is submitted separately. Until 2017, data by the counties is distributed by the administrative division that existed before administrative reform (October 2017). Data starting from 2018 is distributed by new administrative division. This classification system is available on the webpage of the Statistics Estonia.

List of hospitals
On the basis of the services they provide hospitals are divided into seven types: regional hospitals, central hospitals, general hospitals, local hospitals, special hospitals, rehabilitation hospitals and nursing care hospitals. Requirements for different hospital types are laid down in Decree No. 103 Requirements for Hospital Types, issued by the Minister of Social Affairs on 19 August 2004 (in Estonian only).

Classification of occupations of the health care system
The classification is used for grouping the occupations of the health care system and is based on International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08). Since 2019, more detailed 5th level was created and added to the health care occupations in Estonia. The classification is available on the webpage of the Statistics Estonia (in Estonian).

List of health care service provider
On the basis of the type of provided health care service the health care service providers are divided in the following way:

• Hospital – a health care provider which complies with the requirements related to location, construction, administrative organisation and staff, aimed at providing inpatient medical care in medical specialties. As a rule, in addition to inpatient health care service, hospitals also provide outpatient and day care services.
• Family doctor’s office – a health care provider in which outpatient health care services are provided by a medical practitioner specialised as a family doctor operating based on his/her practice list.
• Specialist health care provider – a health care provider in which outpatient health care services are provided by a medical specialist and health care professionals working with him/her. These include the facilities providing occupational health services.
• Dental care provider – a health care provider in which outpatient health care services are provided by a dentist and health care professionals working with him/her.
• Emergency medical care provider — outpatient health care provider for the initial diagnosis and treatment of a life-threatening disease, injury or poisoning and, if necessary, for the transport of the person in need of assistance to a hospital. Emergency medical care providers only encompass independent emergency medical care providers.
• Rehabilitation care provider — a health care provider which provides outpatient health care services with the aim of improving people’s condition of health and in case of which the health-related limits to everyday life either arise from an injury or the chronic nature of the disease.
• Diagnostics provider – a provider of outpatient health services for the assessment of the patient’s state of health with the help of laboratory tests and diagnostic examinations.
• Nursing care provider – a health care provider in which independent outpatient or inpatient health care services are provided only by nurses and/or midwives.
• Other provider – this group includes providers which have not been mentioned above, but which hold an activity licence enabling them to provide health care services, e.g., facilities providing school health care service, prison outpatient medical departments, Estonian Defence Forces and also the providers which deal with the organisation of first aid courses, hold telephone medical consultations and provide support staff for family physicians.

The health care service providers mentioned above are classified in descending order of rank, i.e., if one facility provides several health care services, it is classified as an facility providing a relevant service mentioned afore in the list.

Rummo T-L. Tervishoiutöötajate palk 2022. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2022. Analysis in pdf-format

Tomson K. Health Care Personnel in Estonia 2017. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2019. Analysis in Estonian (summary in English) in pdf-format

National Institute for Health Development of Estonia, The National Health Service of Latvia, Health Information Centre, Institute of Hygiene, Lithuania. Health in the Baltic Countries 2016. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2018. Report in pdf-format

National Institute for Health Development of Estonia, The National Health Service of Latvia, Health Information Centre, Institute of Hygiene, Lithuania. Health in the Baltic Countries 2015. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2017. Report in pdf-format

Liivlaid H. Hourly wages of health care personnel, March 2016. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2016. Analysis in pdf-format

and previous analyzes about hourly wages of health care personnel can be found on NIHD research reports web page

Tiiu-Liisa Rummo

Department of Health Statistics

National Institute for Health Development

E-mail: tiiu-liisa.rummo@tai.ee

Updated: 19.10.2023