Hourly wages of regular employees up 65.3% since 2011... 2.7 times the inflation rate - South Korean report

While South Korea's prices rose 24.2% between 2011 and 2023, the annual salary of regular employees, including performance-based pay, increased by more than 50%, a new study found.
According to a report titled "Analysis of the Characteristics of Wage Increases for Business Entities in 2023" published on the 21st by the Korea Employers Federation,
Last year, the average total annual salary of regular employees, including salary and special pay, was 47.81 million won (about 5.36 million yen), up 2.8% from the previous year.
Last year's annual salary increase rate was 2.4% lower than that of 2022 (5.2%). This is because special pay, which increased by 10.4% in 2022, was 2.4% lower than last year's.
The Korea Employers Federation analyzed that this is due to a 2.9% decrease in special pay in 2020 compared to the previous year. If the analysis period is extended to the most recent three years from 2021 to 2023, the cumulative
The cumulative increase rate was 22.4%, nearly double the fixed salary rate (11.9%). By industry, the total annual salary in the finance and insurance industry was the highest at 87.22 million won (about 9.8 million yen), followed by the accommodation industry.
The accommodation and restaurant industry had the lowest rate of increase in total annual salary compared to the previous year at 30.29 million won (approximately 3.4 million yen). The accommodation and restaurant industry had the highest rate of increase in total annual salary compared to the previous year at 6.9%, while the finance and insurance industry had the lowest rate of increase at 0.1%.
The rate of increase in hourly wages was found to be much higher than the total annual wages due to a sharp decline in actual working hours. Last year, the hourly wage of regular employees was 20,560 yen.
The increase is set at 1.04 won (about US$28.04), up 3.6% from 2022 and 0.8% higher than last year's total annual wage increase rate (2.8%).
The hourly wage for regular employees rose from 15,488 won (about 1,736 yen) in 2011 to 25,604 won (about 1,736 yen) last year.
This cumulative increase was 1.52 percentage points higher than the total annual wages for the same period (50.1%).
The cumulative inflation rate in 2023 compared to 2011 is 24.2%, while the wage increase rate is
The rate of increase in hourly wages was 50.1%, and the rate of increase in hourly wages was 65.3%, which were 2.1 times and 2.7 times higher than the inflation rate, respectively. Not since 2011 has the rate of increase in hourly wages been lower than the inflation rate.
Ha Sang-woo, head of the economic research department at the Korea Employers Federation, said, "For the past three years, wage increases have been driven by increases in special allowances, such as high performance-based pay at large companies."
"We need to stabilize wages that have risen excessively as a result of labor movements centered on labor unions and large corporations, and we need to restrain the payment of excessive performance-based bonuses to high-wage workers," he said.