New Web site tells pay at 295 public institutions

About 30 percent of the nation’s public institutions are paying more than 50 million won ($53,800) per year to their average non-executive employees, the Ministry of Planning and Budget said. The ministry today opens a Web site ― Alio (http://www.alio.go.kr) ― on which 295 public institutions, including state-run companies and state-invested research institutes, have to release wage agreements and other major decisions that could burden their finances. The system has been introduced “to watch and prevent loose management of public institutions that are operating on people’s tax,” said a spokesman for the Planning Ministry. After gathering data from the public institutions, the Planning Ministry said there are 90 institutions that paid above 50 million won on average to their non-executive employees last year. The state-run Korea Development Institute ranked at the top with 85 million won in annual salary on average. Another state-run bank, the Export-Import Bank of Korea, took second place, paying 72 million won to an average worker. Three state-invested research institutes ― the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science ― ranked third to fifth, with around 70 million won in pay. “State-run banks are less controlled by the government in wages than other public institutions,” said Bae Kook-hwan, director of public institution reform in the Planning Ministry. “And state-run research institutions give relatively high average pay, because they have many employees with doctoral degrees.” Average pay in the nation’s top 100 private firms is 55 million won. Korea has 314 public institutions. Institutions that do not show wages through the Alio site include the Bank of Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service. They will show pay on their own Web sites. by Moon So-young