Wage Gap
The wage differential between a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and employees in Korea is relatively lower than that of other countries.
The Korea Economic Research Institute (KERO) announced such a result on August 17, after comparing the average annual salary of CEOs relative to employees in Korea and other major countries in 2012 by utilizing the Data Analysis, Retrieval and Transfer System of the Financial Supervisory Service, Wage and Korea Employment Information Service of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and The American Federation of Labor and data of Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).
According to KERI, the average annual CEO salary was 51 times higher than employees in Korea. The Korean gap was much smaller than the 354 times of the U.S., 147 times of Germany, and 104 times of France. Sweden (89 times) and Japan (67 times) scored higher than Korea as well. KERI insisted that executives get paid more as corporate value increases, and that social criticism of high executive salaries will ironically hinder corporate value from rising.
KERI also emphasized that it is inappropriate to disclose the salary of unregistered executives. The U.K., France, Germany, and Sweden only disclose the salaries of board members. Japan. which has a similar legal system to Korea, only reveals the salary of registered executives.