Level of wage and profitability of economic activity in the ukrainian economy: research by sectors of the economy and size of enterprises

Abstract

The article examines the relationship between the aggregate levels of remuneration and profitability of economic activity, which are typical for large, medium and small enterprises of different sectors of the economy. For this purpose, the indicators of wages and labor profitability (net surplus of profits / losses per employee) are brought to the comparable dimension and sectors of the economy were grouped according to the size of such indicators. We selected four sectors of the economy, which are characterized by the highest levels of profitability and analyzed their characteristics by the level of remuneration. We also analyzed the four sectors with the highest rates of wages in terms of their labor profitability. It was revealed that mainly, large and small enterprises, belonging to the sectors, which are characterized by comparatively better labor profitability, at the same time, belonged to the sectors with worst indicators by the level of wages. At the same time, in the sectors, where large and small enterprises are characterized by the highest wages, the worst indicators of financial results of economic activity were observed (the highest losses per one employee). The mentioned above we tends to interpret as a sign that the strong direct connection between the level of remuneration and the level of labor profitability is not observed in the Ukrainian economy. Accordingly, entrepreneurs do not have incentives to distribute models of economic behavior, based on the dynamic growth of wages, increasing the importance of staff’s competencies in the system of competitiveness factors, and on the active participation of employers in investing in human capital.