Korean salaries surpassed Japan's in 2022, report says

Employees walk to work on Feb. 13 after the Lunar New Year holiday in Jung District, central Seoul. [NEWS1]

The salary level of Korea's workers surpassed that of Japan's in 2022, according to a report the Korea Enterprises Federation released Sunday.

The figure marks a dramatic rise, given that Korean workers earned less than half the salaries of their Japanese counterparts just 20 years ago.

Korea’s monthly wage surpassed Japan’s by 6 percent in 2022. In 2002, Korea accounted for 46 percent of employees' monthly wages in Japan.

The total monthly wages of regular employees in Korea averaged 3.99 million won ($2,991) in 2022, an increase of 122 percent from 2002's 1.79 million won, according to the report, which compares the wages of workers at Korean and Japanese companies with 10 employees or more.

The report compares the changes in wages of employees at Korean and Japanese companies with 10 employees or more between 2002 and 2022.

Japan’s average monthly wage decreased 6 percent to reach 3.79 million won over the period.

In 2002, the overall average wage for Korean conglomerates — defined as Korean companies with more than 500 employees or Japanese firms with more than 1,000 — stood at 2.28 million won, while the wage for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) — classified as those with 10 to 99 workers — registered 1.6 million won.

The average wage at Japanese conglomerates in 2002 was 4.83 million won per month, while that of SMEs was 3.1 million per month. Both figures were far higher than those of Korea.

By contrast, conglomerate workers in Korea earned an average of 5.88 million won in 2022, reflecting a 157 percent increase over the two decades. Those in Japan averaged 4.43 million won per month, a six percent decrease.

Wages at Korea’s SMEs also increased 111 percent. The monthly average wage stood at 3.39 million in 2022. Those of Japanese workers jumped just 7 percent to 3.26 million won.

The wage increase becomes more noticeable when considering the two countries' working hours.

Korea's average monthly working hours fell 13 percent to reach 155.8 in 2022. Hourly rages rose 157 percent to 25,661 won.

Neither Japan's working hours nor its hourly wage showed much change over the same period. The former held steady at 165 per month, while the latter reached 2,337 yen ($16) in 2022, an increase of one yen from 2002.

The hourly wage of conglomerates in Korea increased by 183.1 percent, and that of SMEs by 152. 5 percent. That of Japanese conglomerates fell 9.7 percent over the same period while that of SMEs increased by just 8.9 percent.

The wage gap, however, between conglomerates and SMEs in Korea was wider than that of Japan in terms of monthly wages.

On average, workers at Korean SMEs earned slightly more than half — 57.7 percent — of those at conglomerates. Those at Japanese SMEs, by contrast, were paid an average of 73.7 percent of their conglomerate counterparts' wages.

BY PARK HAE-LEE, KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]