Seoul Station is busy with travelers in the morning on Nov. 1, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 22 (Korea Bizwire) — Almost 75 percent of people in the top 1 percent of the earned income tier work at companies located in greater Seoul area, indicating severe inequality between regions in terms of job quality, data showed Monday.
Rep. Kim Hoi-jae of the Democratic Party received reports from the National Tax Service which showed that in the year-end tax adjustment for the year 2020, 194,953 people belonged to the top 1 percent of the earned income tier.
Among them, 145,322 people had their workplaces located in Seoul, Gyeonggi Province, Incheon and other regions within capital region, which accounted for 74.5 percent of all top income earners.
Sorted by 17 regions, Seoul had the largest number of top tier income earners (86,716 people, 44.5 percent).
Jeju had the fewest top tier income earners (1,163 people) excluding the central administrative city of Sejong (516 people).
Gangwon Province (1,912 people) and North Jeolla Province (2,333 people) also had fewer top tier income earners.
Per 100,000 residents, 897 top 1 percent income earners worked in Seoul, followed by Gyeonggi Province (392 people), Ulsan (287 people), Busan (249 people) and Daejeon (223 people).
Gangwon Province had the fewest top 1 percent income earners per 100,000 (124 people), followed by North Jeolla Province (129 people), Sejong (145 people), South Jeolla Province (151 people) and Jeju (172 people).
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
