Samsung Electronics Employees' Salaries Decreased by More Than 10% Last Year

CXO Research Institute, Employee Compensation and National Pension Subscribers Survey
Calculated by dividing total salary in audit report by number of employees
Labor cost ratio to sales increased by 1%P

A survey result showed that the annual salary of Samsung Electronics employees last year is estimated to have decreased by more than 10% compared to the previous year, to around 120 million KRW.

On the 5th, Korea CXO Research Institute, a corporate analysis specialist organization, announced the results of the "2023 Samsung Electronics Employee Average Salary Analysis and Monthly National Pension Subscriber Change Status." Last year, the average salary (annual salary) per Samsung Electronics employee was around 120 million KRW, which is about an 11.1% (15 million KRW) decrease from the previous year (135 million KRW). The expected average salary per employee was calculated based on the audit report (separate financial statements) disclosed by Samsung Electronics on the 19th of last month. The analysis excluded registered executives and included non-registered executives and general employees at the manager level or below.

On January 9th, at Samsung Electronics Seocho Building in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

The total employee salary (salary and retirement benefits) in the audit report was divided by the total number of employees. The total employee salary was 14.6778 trillion KRW. It is estimated that the total salary of executives and employees in the business report to be disclosed soon by Samsung Electronics will be between 14.38 trillion and 14.75 trillion KRW. It was explained that the total employee salary in the audit report from 2017 to 2022 over six years was almost similar to the total employee salary in the business report. If the total employee salary in the audit report is 100%, the total employee salary in the business report was 97.8% in 2017, 99.9% in 2018, 99.8% in 2019, 98.8% in 2020, 100.5% in 2021, and 98.5% in 2022.

The estimated number of employees in the audit report is 121,300. This was based on the half-year report containing the figure as of the end of June last year. The estimate was made considering that the difference in the number of employees between Samsung Electronics' year-end business reports and half-year reports over the past five years was within about 1%. Samsung Electronics disclosed in last year's half-year report that the number of employees subject to salary calculation was 120,164. Based on this, CXO Research Institute estimated that the number of employees in last year's business report was between 120,700 and 121,900.

Dividing the total employee salary in the audit report by the estimated total number of employees results in an average salary in the range of 116 million to 121 million KRW. The official average employee salary in the business report was 119 million KRW in 2018, 108 million KRW in 2019, 127 million KRW in 2020, 144 million KRW in 2021, and 135 million KRW in 2022. The salary has shown a decreasing trend for three consecutive years, and last year's salary returned to the 2018 average salary level (119 million KRW).

Employment increased by about 2,600 last year. The number of employees was calculated based on National Pension subscription statistics. Compared to January last year (118,094 employees), the number of new National Pension subscribers among Samsung Electronics employees in January this year (120,732 employees) increased by 2,638. During the entire last year (January to December), 9,125 employees newly acquired National Pension subscription eligibility at Samsung Electronics, while 6,359 employees left.

The proportion of labor costs to sales is increasing. The proportion of labor costs to sales in the audit report decreased from about 8% in 2020 to 7.9% in 2021 and 7.5% in 2022, but rose to 8.6% last year, increasing by 1.1 percentage points in one year. Oh Il-seon, director of CXO Research Institute, said, "Despite Samsung Electronics' poor business performance last year, the burden of labor costs increased," and added, "It is expected that efforts will be made this year to reduce the proportion of labor costs."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.