Foreign IT companies pay highest

Among a total 7.54 million tax payers in South Korea, 8.3 percent earned over 80 million won (about $73,000) per year and most of them work at local conglomerates or foreign companies, according to Payopen (www.payopen.co.kr), an annual salary website.

According to the website’s analysis of a report on the 2011 national tax statistics released by the National Tax Service, the average annual income of high-paid workers was 119 million won. Among foreign companies, those in the finance, electrics, medicine and IT industries offered the highest pay.

The 2011 audit reports handed in by 12 foreign companies in Korea to the Financial Supervisory Service also showed that among foreign companies, IT companies ranked highest in terms of salary.

Based on the number of employees (125) and the total amount of salary and bonuses (18.3 billion won) given out last year, the average annual salary at Intel Korea was about 146 million won in 2011. The number is double what is known to be the annual average at Samsung Electronics.

U.S.-based networking equipment maker Cisco Systems Korea and Finland-based handset maker Nokia Korea’s average annual salaries were calculated to be fairly high as well -- about 128 million won and 114 million won, respectively.

“Foreign IT companies seem to have a high average of annual salary because they usually have many experienced employees who used to work for local conglomerates like Samsung or LG, and seldom hire inexperienced, new employees,” said an employee at a foreign IT company who declined to give his name.

The average annual salary at IBM Korea, for example, is known to be around 75 million won, according to a news report.

In fields other than IT, foreign bio and pharmaceutical companies offered the highest salaries. The average annual salary of employees at Pfizer Korea is calculated to be nearly 77.8 million won, AstraZeneca Korea around 80.4 million won and Boehringer Ingelheim Korea some 79.7 million won.

With entry-level salaries, however, foreign companies did not offer as much as local conglomerates, according to a study by online job search portal Job Korea. While the average starting pay for new employees at the nation’s top 500 local companies was 33 million won, that of 33 foreign companies here was 29.17 million won. 



By Park Min-young

(claire@heraldcorp.com)