Average Salary of Public Agency Employees Surpassed a Hundred Million Won: Nine Agencies Paid Salaries Higher than Hyundai Motor Co.

People swarm to a joint public agency job fair at Busan City Hall on May 10. Yonhap News

Last year, the average salary of employees in fifteen public agencies exceeded a hundred million won. In nine of the fifteen agencies, the average employee salary was higher than that of Hyundai Motor Company, which recorded the biggest operating profit in the first quarter this year among listed companies.

According to Statistics Korea and the All Public Information In-One (ALIO) system, which publishes the business information of public agencies, on May 22, the average wage of the 362 public agencies (including affiliates) that released the information on employee wages (based on regular workers) was 70,382,000 won a year.

This was 4.2% higher than the average wage of large companies and nearly 2.2 times that of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). According to the 2021 Wage Employment Position Income (Wage) Survey by Statistics Korea, the average income of a large company employee at the end of 2021 was 67,560,000 won (before tax) a year, while the average income of an SME employee was 31,920,000 won.

The annual salary surpassed 100 million won in fifteen public agencies. Employees at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) earned the highest salary with an average of 117,098,000 won a year. ETRI ranked sixth among the top ten companies with the highest market value.

ETRI was followed by the Korea Investment Corporation (115,725,000 won), the Korea Development Bank (112,890,000 won), the Industrial Bank of Korea (108,849,000 won), the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (107,371,000 won) and the Export-Import Bank of Korea (106,157,000 won).

Compared with the average salary of Hyundai Motor Company (105 million won), which recorded the biggest operating profit among listed companies in the first quarter this year, employees at nine agencies including ETRI, the Korea Investment Corporation, and the Korea Development Bank earned more than Hyundai employees.

The average salary for men was 75,397,000 won, 23.1% higher than that of women (61,232,000 won). The salary for male employees exceeded 100 million won in thirty public agencies, while for women, it only exceeded 100 million won in two agencies.

Last year, the starting salary of a newly recruited employee was on average 37,903,000 won a year, and among public agencies, the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute paid the highest salary, 53,486,000 won, for newly hired employees.