Average Daily Wage for Production Workers in SMEs in the Second Half: 98,336 KRW... Up 1.7% Year-on-Year

A small and medium-sized manufacturing factory located in Gimpo, Gyeonggi.
Photo by Lee Jun-hyung

[Asia Economy Reporter Junhyung Lee] The average daily wage for production workers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the second half of this year was recorded at 98,336 KRW.

The Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 18th that this result came from the "2021 Second Half SME Manufacturing Industry Wage Survey by Job Type," conducted on 1,400 small and medium manufacturing companies nationwide with annual sales of over 3 billion KRW. The average daily wage for production workers in the SME manufacturing sector in the second half of this year was 98,336 KRW, a 1.7% increase compared to the same period last year (96,716 KRW). Compared to the first half of this year (97,221 KRW), it rose by 1.1%.

By job type, the average daily wage for "simple labor workers" was 82,001 KRW. "Team leaders" and "parts assemblers" earned 119,878 KRW and 85,726 KRW respectively. The highest daily wage was for "CAD designers" at 139,921 KRW. Following were "chemical engineering quality controllers" (135,678 KRW), "pattern makers" (135,650 KRW), and "electric engineers" (135,314 KRW). The lowest daily wage was for "wood drying machine operators" at 72,442 KRW.

The Korea Federation of SMEs explained that for job types where average wages have increased, starting next year, bid prices can be raised by the same rate as the daily wage increase for those job types. Detailed survey results, including average wages by job type, can be found on the Korea Federation of SMEs website and the SME Statistics System.