Bratislava, 2 September (TASR) - The average nominal monthly salary in Slovakia amounted to €1,654 in the second quarter of 2025, up by 8.8 percent year-on-year (y-o-y), the Statistics Office reported on Tuesday. The y-o-y growth pace almost doubled compared to the previous quarter, reaching the highest level seen in the past five quarters. Despite higher inflation, real salary growth accelerated to 4.5 percent. The seasonally adjusted average salary rose by 3.4 percent from the first quarter of 2025. All the 19 monitored branches of the economy posted increases in average nominal monthly salaries, ranging from 4 percent in the real estate sector to over 16 percent in real estate and in water management. The nominal salary growth exceeded 10 percent in almost half of the branches. When considering inflation, real salary growth was reported by all the 19 branches as well, with the most significant growth of over 8 percent felt by employees in water management, education, electricity, gas and steam supplies and the health-care sector. However, the salary growth in the education stater and the state and public administration was largely driven by provision of one-off state bonuses. The highest average monthly salary was reported in the financial and insurance sector, amounting to €2,827. Employees in the IT sector earned €2,664 and employees in the public administration, defence and mandatory social security had salaries exceeding €2,000 as well. Salaries of people engaged in the heal-care and social assistance sector remained just below €2,000 (€1,962). However, salaries in nine of the 19 monitored sectors were below the national average. In the first half of 2025 the average nominal monthly salary in Slovakia amounted to €1,586, up 6.9 percent y-o-y. Real monthly salary increased by 2.8 percent y-o-y in the first half of this year. ko