The average net monthly salary recorded, in the first quarter of this year, the biggest increase in the National Statistics Institute (INE) series, an increase of 6.3%, to 1090 euros per employee. Official data goes back to the beginning of 2011.

According to INE, this salary indicator is the monthly income earned by employees “after deducting income tax, employees' mandatory contributions to Social Security schemes, and employers' contributions to Social Security”. This is the money that the employee actually takes home at the end of the month.

And driving this national average are the employees who earn the most in the country (salaries exceeding 3000 euros net), a group that today amounts to 62.4 thousand people, the largest in the INE series. Ten years ago, in 2014, there were less than half, according to a report by Dinheiro Vivo.

The value of the average net salary also increases because there are more and more people with two jobs, a group whose size reached, in the first quarter, maximums in the INE series.

There are now 262.4 thousand people who say that they have a second job. This is the second highest value in the series after the 271 thousand workers in the same condition estimated in the second quarter of last year, the country was in the midst of an explosive period of tourism and preparation for the mega-event that was World Youth Day, which brought Pope Francis to Portugal.

The need or option to combine two jobs is a reality that occurs, above all, in the services sector, where schedules are more fragmented, work relationships are more unregulated, and there is more precariousness.

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