Top wholesale companies in Lithuania pay nearly €10,000 a month before tax

Average monthly pay at seven companies in a Lithuanian wholesale-company ranking exceeded €10,000 before tax. Pharmaceutical and medicine distributors accounted for half of the 20 companies listed.

Huawei Technologies paid the highest average salary this year, at €11,900 per month. The company had 11 employees at the beginning of September, and its average pay rose 58.5% from January to July last year. CM Kaunas ranked second, also at €11,900, while Skovs Korn Baltic ranked third at €11,850. Salaries at Skovs Korn Baltic rose 35.5% over the year.

Pharmaceutical companies AbbVie and Eli Lilly Lietuva followed, with average monthly salaries of €10,520 and €10,500. Merck Sharp & Dohme, Medison Pharma Lithuania and Roche Lietuva also entered the top 10.

Philip Morris Baltic employed the most people among the highest-paying wholesalers, with 137 employees in early September. Its average salary from January to July was €10,450. Samsung Electronics' Lithuanian representative office recorded one of the largest declines, with average pay falling 19.1%, from €11,840 last year to €9,570 this year.

The sharpest drop in the ranking came at Latvia's Recipe Plus, where average pay fell 33.3% to €8,990. Heston Materials recorded the fastest growth, up 70.9% to €9,250. Tarkett Polska's Lithuanian branch entered the top 20 for the first time, paying its four employees an average of €9,350 a month from January to July.