Bankers At this moment Earn W50,000 one hour

The hourly wage of bankers now exceeds W50,000, an initial for Korea and an alarming sign of growing wealth disparity (US$1=W1,115).

But while paychecks have grown to be fatter, banks are growing less competitive as they insist on maintaining a good seniority-based wage system irrespective of performance and are appearing edged out by leaner online corporations.

In line with the Ministry of Occupation and Labor in Tuesday, financial-sector employees earned W7.98 million for 158.6 time of work per month on average in the first quarter. That boils right down to an hourly wage of W50,292, or twice the average pay of all other sectors, that was W24,379, and six times greater than the minimum hourly wage of W8,720.

The financial sector includes banks, insurance companies and brokerages.

Bankers worked about average hours and less than miners (176.2 hours) and manufacturing staff (169.5 hours). Their every month hours dwindled by 4.5 hours in comparison to this past year, but pay increased by about W791,800. That results in an hourly pay rise of 14.2 percent, the only sector where progress surpassed 10 percent.

But per-capita productivity didn't improve. This past year, the per-capita working profit at KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana and Woori banking institutions stood at W175.4 million, down 6.8 percent in comparison to 2019.

A key gauge of efficiency, the proportion of wages away of selling, standard and administrative costs, stood at 64.9 percent in the first quarter and has been rising since 2019. Big foreign banking institutions manage around 50 percent -- HSBC 51.4 percent, JP Morgan 52.5 percent and Citigroup 50.3 percent.

The workforce structure can be a problem. In line with the Korea Institute of Financing, the proportion of managerial personnel to clerks at domestic banks was 38.5 to 61.5 percent in 1996, before the Asian financial crisis, but rose to an absurdly top-heavy 60.2 to 39.8 in 2008. It features slightly flattened since, but managers even now outnumber clerks.

Kim Woo-jin at the institute said, "Domestic finance institutions are facing complications in workforce flexibility as a result of an outdated wage program and fierce union opposition. They have to drop their outdated seniority-based pay level and adopt performance-established pay."