Job ads state less than people earn in 49 of 50 occupations

Of 50 occupations with enough ads that state pay, 49 advertise a median below what Statistics Finland reports full-time employees earn. The middle occupation sits at 80% of official earnings, a gap of 20%. Electricians: €2,956 advertised against €3,845 earned (77%). Nurses: €3,083 against €3,850 (80%). Shop assistants: €2,139 against €2,909 (74%). Software developers are the only occupation above the line: €5,750 against €5,337 (108%).

Advertised pay is the median midpoint of the monthly pay range an employer states, from 7,889 on-site and hybrid ads located in Finland, first seen in the 12 months to 1 November 2026, open or closed. Only pay the employer wrote in the ad counts, never our estimates; commission pay is left out, and an employer's repeat of the same title and pay band counts once. Official earnings are Statistics Finland's pay structure statistics for 2024 (CC BY 4.0): median monthly earnings for regular working hours of full-time employees, raised to 2026 Q3 with the wage index, the same figures our salary pages use. Ad titles are matched to occupation codes through our title mapping; 31 of 245 mappings that did not settle the occupation are excluded. An occupation is shown only with 30 or more ads from 10 or more employers and no employer above 30% of them.

Ads state base or starting pay, while official figures include shift allowances and experience increments, so some of the gap is definitional. Employers that state pay are not a random sample: 43,037 of 191,400 ads (22%) in the window state pay, and 67 of 393 software developer ads (17%), so tech employers that disclose may skew high. The ads are up to a year old while official pay is raised to 2026 Q3, which if anything makes ratios slightly lower. Title matching is approximate: nurse ads can include practical nurses, for example.