iPhone 6 costs average Dublin worker over one week’s wages

It takes the average worker in Dublin 43.4 hours to buy an iPhone 6 with 16 GB memory, according to a cost of living study.

The Prices and Earnings report, published every three years by Swiss bank UBS examined 71 cities worldwide.

It takes 41.2 hours for the average London worker to buy an iPhone 6, 27.2 hours for the average Los Angeles worker and 20.6 hours for the average Zurich worker.

The worker in Nairobi would need to work for 468 hours while the average in Kiev is 627.2 hours work for an iPhone6.

It takes the Dublin worker 15 minutes to buy a Big Mac compared to 12 minutes in London and New York and 15 in Paris.

It takes the average worker in Nairobi 173 minutes to earn enough buy a Big Mac, 78 minutes in Mexico city and 62 minutes in Cairo.

As staple consumer goods, the McDonald’s Big Mac and the Apple iPhone will be of the same quality and nature whether bought in Doha or Rio de Janeiro which makes their worldwide prices and affordability comparable.

Workers in Hong Kong only have to work on average nine minutes to buy a Big Mac, while those in Nairobi have to work almost three hours.

In Dublin and Cairo, the price for women to get their hair cut is almost three times higher than for men.

This imbalance is seen across the globe, with women’s haircuts costing on average 40 per cent more than men’s.

The survey found the price of a haircut for women in Dublin is €43.25 and €13.24 for men.

Social welfare

Workers in Dublin pay 19.5 per cent of their income in tax and social welfare contributions compared to 45 per cent in Copenhagen.

Average tax worldwide was almost 13 per cent, but varies among cities as income tax rates are calculated by each country and/or city to ensure control of its own finances, the survey noted.

On average, workers worldwide spend more than 40 hours per week at their workplace, and receive over 4½ weeks paid vacation.

The average Dublin worker spends 1,770 hours at work per year with 31 days of paid vacation.

All workaholics should move to Hong Kong, where working hours average in excess of 50 per week, with only 17 days of holiday annually. Those who like time off should consider finding a job in Paris, where people work 35 hours per week (in line with new government regulations) and have 29 days paid vacation.

Workers in cities with high relative gross salaries (Zurich, Geneva and Luxembourg) receive pay that is on average 19 times those in Nairobi, Jakarta and Kiev.