Female brokers paid far less than male colleagues: data

Published : Aug 19, 2016 - 11:30 Updated : Aug 19, 2016 - 13:35

Female workers at South Korea's major brokerage firms got paid nearly half the salaries of their male colleagues in the first half of 2016, official data showed Friday.

The average pay of workers at the 20 largest brokerages by asset stood at 48 million won ($43,000) during the six months, according to the regulatory filing system of the Financial Services Commission.

By gender, male workers earned an average of 61 million won, while female ones earned 35 million won.

It means men made more than 4 million won each month, quite a wide gap even in consideration of a performance-based pay system widespread in the securities industry.

In the case of Korea Investment & Securities Co., male employees got paid 123 million won, but their female counterparts received 54 million won.

A sign of a local brokerage firm. (Yonhap)

"There are big differences in bonuses in sales or asset management departments," an industry official said. "It's hard to simply compare the wages of men and women as there are relatively many female workers in the administrative and supporting fields."

Meanwhile, Meritz Securities Co. ranked top in the average pay of workers with 63 million won during the January-June period, followed by Mirae Asset Daewoo Co. with 61 million won and Kyobo Securities Co. with 50.9 million won. (Yonhap)