The average bonus for domestic office workers is approximately 10.69 million won, with the top 0.1% receiving bonuses exceeding 600 million won, highlighting a stark disparity in bonuses.
According to the report on earned income bonus notifications received from the National Tax Service by Park Seong-hoon, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the People Power Party, a total of 9,878,416 workers reported bonuses for the 2023 fiscal year. Their average bonus was 10.69 million won.
The average bonus increased from 10.73 million won in 2021 to 11.13 million won in 2022, but it decreased again last year.
The average bonus for high-income workers in the top 0.1% was 62.698 million won, which is about 144 times higher than the median of 4.35 million won among all workers.
When examining the average bonuses of the top 0.1% by region, Seoul had the highest at 997.55 million won, followed by Gyeonggi Province at 614.42 million won. Busan (407.58 million won), Incheon (356.18 million won), and North Gyeongsang (341.88 million won) followed in that order. In contrast, Gangwon (137.20 million won) and Sejong (162.82 million won) remained in the 100 million won range.
The average bonus for workers in the top 1% was 158.11 million won. The top 10% averaged 54.69 million won, while the top 20% averaged 19.57 million won. The average bonus for the bottom 20% of workers was only 550,000 won, clearly indicating a polarization in bonuses.
Park Seong-hoon noted, 'While some analyses suggest that bonuses decreased due to economic recession and poor corporate performance, the disparity in bonuses between high-income and low-income workers remains severe.' He emphasized that 'it is urgent to resolve this polarization through labor and industrial structure reforms, such as improving the rigidity of the labor market and enhancing the treatment of non-regular workers.'