This file photo shows the buildings of South Korea’s major companies in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — After narrowing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the wage gap between employees of large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is showing signs of expanding again due to the rapid recovery of large companies’ wage growth rate.
The wage level of SMEs in proportion to that of large companies with more than 300 employees has remained lower than 60 percent over the past ten years, according to a report released by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
This ratio, however, rose from 60.8 percent in 2019 to 63.3 percent in 2020 before falling again to 61.7 percent last year.
The wider gap is based on the fact that the wage growth rate of large companies has recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
In fact, the wage growth rate of large companies jumped to 6.6 percent last year after falling to -2.8 percent in 2020 from 0.3 percent in 2019 and 6.4 percent in 2018.
In contrast, the wage growth rate of SMEs has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels. It stood at 3.9 percent last year after falling to 1.2 percent in 2020 from 3.7 percent in 2019 and 4.4 percent in 2018.
Even in the first half of this year, the negotiated wage growth rate of large companies with more than 300 employees stood at 5.4 percent, higher than 5.1 percent for SMEs with 100-299 employees.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
