"Billion-dollar salary" is still a dream job, but large companies have increased their salary level so much that it can be said that they have entered the "era of 1 million won annual salary." On the other hand, there are still many workers who are paid less than the minimum wage and suffer from the hardships of living. They can't help but feel a sense of relative deprivation. The labor community has proposed a minimum wage for next year, demanding an hourly wage of 1,2 won.


1 '35 million club' conglomerates

The Korea Economic Research Institute, affiliated with the National Federation of Businessmen, released data related to the salaries of employees, which is said to be based on business reports of the top 100 non-financial listed companies with sales. It analyzes employee salaries in large companies.

First of all, last year, 1 large companies joined the "35 million annual salary club." Year by year, there are 2019 locations in 9 →2020 in 12→2021 in 23→ 2022 in 35 (last year), with a clear increase of 1 million clubs. Last year's 1 million club conglomerates (35) increased 2019.9 times compared to 3 (9).
Let's take a look at the salaries of 1 of the 35 "2019 million clubs" last year compared to 1.

The average annual salary of employees at 26 locations increased by 26.2019% from KRW 8.548 million in 1 to KRW 1.489 million last year. The company with the largest average annual salary growth was HMM, the largest container carrier in Korea, which increased by 34.4% from KRW 6.105 million to KRW 1.2 million. This was followed by Kakao (358.102%), Naver (4.73%), E8 (59.1%), Kumho Petrochemical (1.53%), Samsung SDI (2.48%), POSCO International (9.48%) and so on.
From 7 to last year, there were eight companies that maintained an average annual salary of KRW 44 million: Samsung Electronics, S-Oil, SK Hynix, Samsung C&S, SK Telecom, Samsung SDS, LX International, and Lotte Fine Chemical. The average annual salary of employees of these companies increased by 0.2019% from KRW 1.8 million in 2019 to KRW 1.835 million last year.

According to an analysis by the Korea Economic Institute, wages have also increased due to the impact of high prices. Lee Sang-ho, head of the economic policy team at Han Kyong-yeon, said, "Even though economic growth slowed to 1.3 percent last year, the number of companies in the '662 million club' increased by 26 from a year ago, which seems to be due to higher wage growth due to continued high prices." "Wage growth for companies with more than 1 employees was very high, at 2.6% in 1 and 1.12% last year."


The annual salary exceeds 2 million... Top salaries in the oil industry

If we broaden the criteria of the Korea Economic Research Institute's analysis of "the top 100 non-financial listed companies by sales," some places have crossed the 2 million threshold. According to a report analyzed by Yonhap News Agency ten days ago, the average annual salary of 84 SK Square employees, including unregistered executives, was 2 million won, but even if 1 unregistered executives were excluded, the average annual salary of employees reached 400.12 million won.

In addition, last year, the average annual salary of LG Corporation, the holding company of LG Group, and DL Corporation, the holding company of DL Group, was 1 million won each.

Places with an average annual salary of more than 5 million are exceptional because they have very few employees, and by industry, the refining industry is at the top.

Looking at the average annual salary of employees in the refining industry last year, S-OIL won 702.2 million, SK Energy won 100 million, GS Caltex won 2.1 million, and SK Energy's parent company SK Innovation won 7 million.
So if you broaden it to all workers, what is the average salary? The General Association of Korean Business Executives (Kyungchong) recently released a report titled 'Analysis of Characteristics of Salary Increase by Company Size and Industry in 107', and the total annual salary of commercial workers was calculated at 1.5 million won. Compared to 700 (KRW 1 million), which was before Corona, it increased by 5.397%.

Before and after COVID, the salary of workers has increased quite a bit. As analyzed by the Korea Economic Research Institute above, the reason is that employees are demanding wage increases due to high prices, especially among the MZ generation. The fact that many companies performed well in the Corona era is also being analyzed as a background for the increase in annual salaries.



Salary polarization is getting worse

There are not only billionaires but still many workers who suffer from low wages, and wage inflation in large corporations is bound to increase the relative deprivation of small and medium-sized workers. If you fall into the illusion of averages, it's hard to see salary polarization properly.

In the "2021 Wage and Earned Job Income (Remuneration) Results" recently released by the National Statistics Office, the wage gap between workers in large and small companies more than doubled. As of December 2, the average income of workers in large companies was 2021.12 million won per month before tax, while workers in small and medium-sized enterprises earned only 563.266 million won.

In a recent report, Kyungchong (Korea Management Association) said that the rate below the minimum wage was 12.7% last year. That's 12.7% of wage earners who did not receive the minimum wage. If you dig a little further, the number of workers who did not receive the statutory minimum wage was 275.6 million.

Kyung Chong appears to have created the data to emphasize that the rate of increase in the minimum wage is steep and therefore less acceptable to the labor market, that is, the current minimum wage level is too high. Even with that intention, we can see that there are many low-wage workers, which leads to a serious polarization in salaries.


Labor demands minimum wage of 1,2 won next year

Discussions on next year's minimum wage have started to start, and the labor community demanded an hourly wage of 24,7 won and a monthly wage of 1,2,250 won (based on 8 hours), a 209.<>% increase from this year.
The two major unions, the Democratic Workers' Union and the Korea Workers' Union, cited the realization of the minimum wage during periods of inflation, the decline in real wages due to extreme inflation, the aggressive wage increase policies of major overseas countries, and the reflection of the cost of living for workers' households as the basis for these demands.

In short, prices have skyrocketed and real wages have been cut, so the minimum wage must be raised significantly.