The Korea Times

12-22-2011 16:16 2% of employees earn over W100 mil. per year

By Kim Jae-won The number of Koreans who earned more than 100 million won (about $86,000) annually increased by more than 42 percent in 2010, official figures showed Thursday. The 279,000 employees earning 100 million won a year, which for Koreans has long been a symbol of making it big, accounted for 1.8 percent of the country’s wage earners that year, when the average worker was taking home 26.4 million won, according to the National Tax Service (NTS). ``The number of people earning more than 100 million won increased by more than 83,000 in 2010. The economy’s recovery from the global financial crisis that hit in 2008 explains this sharp gain,’’ a NTS official said. If this explanation has any value, than the number of highly-paid workers will likely fall for 2011 as the country has been experiencing a sharp pullback in economic growth with the eurozone debt crisis headlining a mix of negatives threatening the fragile recovery. The Korean economy grew by 6.2 percent in 2010, but the pace of expansion will likely be in the 3 to 4 percent range this year and next. Foreign residents employed by Korean companies earned an average of 17.5 million won for 2010, pointing to a significant income gap with Korean nationals. A total of 400,000 reported a combined 7 trillion won in annual income, the NTS said. Around 33 percent of those earning more than 100 million won were hired in the manufacturing sector, while another 21 percent of them worked for financial companies and nearly 15 percent of them for services companies. By region, Ulsan, an industrial center for automobiles and heavy industries, was home to the country’s best-compensated workers, with the average annual income measured at 34 million won. Workers in Seoul were earning 30 million won a year while those in Gyeonggi Province took home 26 million won. Workers in Jeju earned the least at 22 million won. Among the self-employed, those making between 40 and 100 million won was the most active charitable group, accounting for 30.8 percent of all who gave money and 30 percent of donations. By tax office, Yeongdeungpo Tax Office in Seoul where major brokerages are based, topped the collection list with 12.3 trillion won pushing Namdaemun, which collected 11.1 trillion won, to second place. Namdaemun, where the headquarters of big conglomerates are based, had topped the list for the previous five years.