Decline in Teacher and Doctor Salaries Observed in Kazakhstan
In Kazakhstan, real wages in the education and healthcare sectors took a hit during Q2 2025, despite nominal wage increases, primarily due to high inflation. Specifically, the country experienced an annual inflation rate of around 11.8% in July 2025, one of the highest levels since 2023.
This high inflation meant that even though nominal wages rose, they didn't keep pace with the increased cost of living. As a result, real wages stopped growing and even decreased in some sectors, including education and healthcare.
The average monthly wage in education during Q2 2025 was 373,800 tenge, while in healthcare it was 339,600 tenge. However, after accounting for inflation, the average monthly wage remained unchanged, marking the first time since 2015 that real wages have shown zero annual growth.
The construction sector, on the other hand, experienced the largest decrease in real wages, with a 10.8% drop. This is a significant deviation from the eight consecutive quarters of growth in real wages observed previously. The average nominal wage in the construction sector in Q2 2025 was 490,200 tenge, but the rise in prices eroded the purchasing power of these wages.
Key factors contributing to this trend include persistent high inflation, slow wage growth relative to inflation, cost pressures in healthcare, and sector-specific constraints. Inflation remained elevated at about 11.8% in mid-2025, especially impacting essential goods and services. This rapid rise in consumer prices outpaced wage increases.
In healthcare, rising personnel expenses and inflationary cost increases—including medical benefit costs—negatively affected sector income despite nominal wage hikes. Sectors like education often face budgetary and funding limits that constrain significant wage increases, making them particularly vulnerable when inflation spikes.
In conclusion, the main reason real wages fell is that inflation outpaced nominal wage growth, reducing purchasing power in the education and healthcare sectors despite nominal salary rises. Inflation-driven erosion of income, combined with increasing costs of living and sector-specific financial constraints, are the main factors behind the observed decline in real wages in Q2 2025 in Kazakhstan. This highlights the importance of managing inflation to protect the purchasing power of workers' incomes across various sectors.
Businesses in Kazakhstan, particularly those in the education and healthcare sectors, struggled to maintain real wages during Q2 2025 due to high inflation. The inflation-driven erosion of income led to a decrease in purchasing power, as the increases in nominal wages couldn't keep up with inflation's impact on the cost of living. This situation underscores the importance of effective financial management in safeguarding workers' incomes, especially when dealing with periods of high inflation.
