The average annual total pay received by domestic regular employees topped 50 million won for the first time last year.
The Korea Enterprises Federation (KEF) said in its report "Analysis of 2025 enterprise wage increase characteristics," released on the 22nd, that the average annual total pay of regular employees last year rose 2.9% from a year earlier to 50.61 million won, entering the 50 million won range for the first time.
Regular employees are wage workers whose employment contracts are either open-ended or at least one year, and annual total pay is the amount obtained by annualizing the monthly average total pay per worker excluding overtime pay.
Last year's annual total pay increase rate was similar to the previous year. This is seen as because the increase rate for fixed pay fell to 2.7% from 3.2% a year earlier, while the increase rate for special pay jumped to 4.3% from 0.4%.
Compared with 2020, last year's annual total pay was found to have increased 19.9%. Over the same period, the increase rate for special pay was 28.3%, 9.6 percentage points higher than the 18.7% increase rate for fixed pay.
By enterprise size, the annual total pay at enterprises with 300 or more employees was 73.96 million won, and at enterprises with fewer than 300 employees it was 45.38 million won. Setting the pay at enterprises with 300 or more employees at 100, enterprises with fewer than 300 employees recorded 61.4.
For enterprises with 300 or more employees, the annual total pay increase rate was 3.9%, up from 2.2% a year earlier. This was because, although the fixed pay increase rate slowed to 3.2% from 3.6% in 2024, special pay, which had decreased 2% the previous year, increased 5.8%.
In contrast, for enterprises with fewer than 300 employees, the annual total pay increase rate was 2.5%, down from 3% a year earlier. The fixed pay increase rate fell to 2.5% from 3.1% in 2024, and the special pay increase rate fell to 2.3% from 2.6%.
By industry, finance and insurance had the highest annual total pay at 93.87 million won, up 5.9% from a year earlier (up 5.9%). It was followed by electricity, gas and steam supply (91.03 million won), professional, scientific and technical services (68.73 million won), and information and communications (63.84 million won). Accommodation and food services was the lowest at 31.75 million won.