WageIndicator Foundation is an NGO, that operates websites and conducts projects related to the websites. In 2001 a website with work-related content and with a web-survey about work and wages could be launched in the Netherlands, thanks to a cooperation between Paulien Osse, web manager and journalist for a trade union, and Kea Tijdens, researcher at the University of Amsterdam. In 2003, this activity was transformed into a Foundation, established under Dutch Law. Paulien Osse became the director of the Foundation and the University of Amsterdam chaired the Board of Overseers. Gradually the Foundation expanded its operations and in 2020 it manages national websites in the national languages in 140 countries. The Foundation’s mission advocates labour market transparency for the benefit of all employers, employees and workers worldwide by sharing and comparing information on wages, labour law and careers.

All websites have work-related content and web tools about frequently searched topics such as wages per occupation, minimum wages, working conditions, job search, labour law and collective labour agreements. Thanks to search engine optimization the websites receive many web-visitors, resulting in almost 40 million visitors in 2019. During the past decades WageIndicator developped a sound IT system, such as the Plone Content Management System, custom-made software to run multilingual web-surveys, API’s for look-up tables for long-list variables such as occupation, education, industry and region/city, web-tools such as Salary Checks in almost all countries, and data-visualisation tools. The Foundation also maintains databases with information about minimum wages, living wages, actual wages and collective agreements. The content of these databases is regularly updated and posted on the national websites. To collect data, the Foundation runs several multi-country surveys, such as a salary survey, a Cost-of-Living survey, a Decent Work Check, and since March 2020 a Covid-19 survey.

WageIndicator has the following data collections:

* Salary data (web and app mode), collected from its Salary Survey and its Salary Check, as well as from a few external sources, for 100+ countries

* Prize data (web and app mode), collected from its Cost-of-living Survey, as well as from a few external sources; the data is used to calculate a living wage within and across countries

* Labour Law data, collected from national governmental websites and used full text and coded, for 100+ countries; the data is used to calculate a Labour Law Index for countries

* Collective Labour Agreements data, collected from social partners  and used full text and coded, for 50+ countries