DOHA: There has been an almost 24 percent increase in the average monthly pay across all sectors in Qatar in 15 months since 2011-end, official figures released yesterday reflect.
The average monthly wage in the first quarter (January to March) this year was QR9,177 ($2,521), while the figure for the entire year of 2011 was QR7,401 ($2,033).
Another important development has been that the country’s population has breached the 1.9 million-mark and had reached 1.93 million by March-end.
Meanwhile, average salary figures for the first or the last quarter of 2012, or for the entire year were not available.
Gender-wise break-up reveals that men earned more than women. The monthly average wage of males in Q1 of 2013 was QR9,802 ($2,693), while that of females was marginally lower at QR7,597 ($2,087).
People, aged 15 years and above, in paid employment totalled a massive 1.45 million in the period under review.
Of them, a vast majority (1.28 million) were men. Women in paid jobs accounted for barely 170,265.
Remittances routed by foreign workers totalled a staggering QR37.54bn ($10.31bn) in 2011, which increased slightly to QR38.97bn ($10.7bn) in 2012, the Qatar Statistics Authority (QSA) figures show. The average monthly remittances worked out to QR3.24bn ($890m) last year.
Expatriate workers are coming into the country regularly, according to the QSA. This means that the male population has been growing at a faster pace than that of women.
According to QSA, the population of people aged 15 years and above was a little over 1.68 million by the end of the first quarter (2013), out of which more than 1.46 million people were economically active.
Out of this, only 4,586 people were not employed, while the others were in paid jobs. Economically inactive people totalled 220,561 by the end of the first quarter.
The Peninsula
