CJ CheilJedang Shows the Largest Pay Gap Among Companies
CJ Group Chairman Lee Jae-hyun Receives the Highest Individual Compensation
Smallest Disparities Found in Banking, Securities, and Other Financial Sectors
Last year, the gap between the highest-paid executives' compensation and the average employee salary at major domestic conglomerates reached 15 times. The industry with the largest disparity was the food and beverage sector.
On the 26th, the corporate analysis institute Leaders Index released comparative and analytical data on CEO salaries, average compensation of non-registered executives, and average employee salaries for 284 companies among the top 500 by revenue that submitted business reports and disclosed salaries of 500 million KRW or more. The results showed that the average compensation of the highest-paid executives in each company last year was 1.45 billion KRW, a 1.3% decrease from the previous year (1.469 billion KRW).
Meanwhile, the actual average salary of employees excluding non-registered executives increased by 3% from 92.3 million KRW the previous year to 95.1 million KRW. The salary gap slightly narrowed from 15.9 times in 2023 to 15.3 times last year as the highest executive pay decreased and employee pay increased, but the difference remained significant.
By industry, the largest salary gap was in the food and beverage sector. The average salary of the highest-paid executives in food and beverage was 1.995 billion KRW, while the average employee salary was 6.718 million KRW, resulting in a 29.7 times difference. This was followed by distribution (22.8 times), pharmaceuticals (22.2 times), IT and electronics (21.7 times), and automotive and parts (20.6 times). Conversely, the smallest gap was in banking, which decreased from 8.6 times in 2023 to 8.3 times last year. Other financial sectors such as credit finance (8.4 times), securities (10 times), and insurance (10.1 times) also showed relatively smaller disparities.
Among individual companies, CJ CheilJedang showed the largest gap. Chairman Sohn Kyung-shik received 8.171 billion KRW while employees earned an actual average salary of 77.02 million KRW, marking a 106.1 times difference. This was followed by LS Electric (87.3 times), BH (84.2 times), Samsung Biologics (75.5 times), Hyundai Department Store (73.9 times), E-Mart (71.8 times), and Hite Jinro (65.2 times). On the other hand, the company with the highest actual average employee salary was SK Energy, which recorded 106.38 million KRW, a 5.2% increase from the previous year (152.51 million KRW).
Meanwhile, the individual highest-paid recipient (excluding retirement pay) was CJ Group Chairman Lee Jae-hyun. Last year, Chairman Lee received a total of 19.374 billion KRW from CJ and CJ CheilJedang. The second highest was Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin, who received 17.834 billion KRW from four affiliates. However, since the business reports for Hotel Lotte and Lotte Property & Development have not been disclosed, those salaries were not included. HS Hyosung Vice Chairman Cho Hyun-sang ranked third, receiving a total of 15.19 billion KRW from Hyosung (excluding retirement income of 17.192 billion KRW) and HS Hyosung last year.
This survey’s CEO compensation was based on the highest-paid C-level (chief decision-maker) individuals among those disclosing salaries of 500 million KRW or more, including stock options but excluding retirement pay. The non-registered executive salary is the average compensation per non-registered executive as reported in business reports, and the average employee salary uses the actual figure excluding non-registered executive compensation from the overall average salary.
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