"Earning an Average of 7.42 Million Won per Month"… Which Industry Has the Highest Annual Salary?

The industry with the highest per capita earned income was found to be the financial and insurance sector.

According to the 'Earned Income by Industry 1000-Quantile Data' submitted by the National Tax Service to Jin Sun-mi, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, as of 2021, the per capita earned income in the financial and insurance industry was calculated to be 89.14 million KRW. This is the highest figure among the 13 surveyed industries (excluding other classified industries) and significantly exceeds the average per capita earned income of 40.24 million KRW for workers released by Jin's office in February.

Following the financial and insurance industry were the electricity, gas, and water supply industry (74.18 million KRW), mining industry (55.30 million KRW), manufacturing industry (48.74 million KRW), real estate industry (46.03 million KRW), and transportation, warehousing, and telecommunications industry (41.57 million KRW), all surpassing the average per capita earned income of 40.24 million KRW.

Minister of Gender Equality and Family Jin Sun-mi is having a conversation with Kim Oh-soo, Vice Minister of Justice, at the Government Complex Seoul during the National Agenda Review and Coordination Meeting held on the 5th. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

Among all classified industries, those showing per capita average earned income below the overall average of 40.24 million KRW were, in order, healthcare industry (40.00 million KRW), construction industry (39.15 million KRW), service industry (36.59 million KRW), wholesale industry (36.58 million KRW), agriculture, forestry, and fishery industry (28.71 million KRW), retail industry (26.79 million KRW), and food and accommodation industry (16.95 million KRW).

Additionally, statistics dividing all earners into 1000 quantile groups show that the total salary of the top 0.1% group, consisting of 19,959 people, was 19.0838 trillion KRW, averaging 956.15 million KRW per person. Among this group, 2,743 earners belonged to the financial and insurance industry, with a total earned income of 3.0391 trillion KRW, averaging 1.1795 billion KRW per person. The food and accommodation industry had 61 earners (57.2 billion KRW) in the same group, averaging 937.71 million KRW per person.

This top-tier average income by industry does not reflect an even distribution of earners, unlike the overall 1000-quantile analysis of all earners. However, considering that the top average income in the food and accommodation industry?which has the lowest per capita average earned income and less than half of the overall average per capita income?approaches the top average income level of the entire quantile group, Jin's office analysis suggests that income disparities between upper and lower quantiles may be more pronounced by industry.

Jin stated, "While the average per capita earned income among the 13 industries shows a gap of more than five times, it has been confirmed that greater income disparities exist within the upper and lower quantiles of each industry. Although the number of earners has approached 20 million with earned income growth exceeding the domestic gross product (GDP) growth over the past four years, recent growth has sharply slowed and is showing a downward trend. Therefore, balanced income growth measures considering the characteristics of work types and intensity by industry are necessary."