Nearly 30% of wage workers earn more than W4m a month

Nearly 30 percent of wage workers in South Korea earn more than 4 million won ($2,800) a month, while another 20 percent take home half of that, highlighting growing income polarization among employees, government data showed Wednesday.

According to data released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics, 27.5 percent of wage earners took home at least 4 million won per month. Among them, 11.2 percent earned between 4 million and 5 million won, while 16.3 percent earned more than 5 million won, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier.

However, nearly one in five workers, or 19.5 percent, earned less than 2 million won.

By income bracket, those earning between 2 million and 3 million won made up the largest share at 30.6 percent, followed by those earning 4 million won or more (27.5 percent) and those making between 3 million and 4 million won (21.9 percent). Workers earning between 1 million and 2 million won accounted for 9.9 percent, while those earning less than 1 million won made up 9.6 percent.

By education level, among those with less than a middle school education, the largest share, 23.9 percent, worked in simple labor such as cleaning and building maintenance, followed by agricultural, livestock and food service jobs (6.7 percent).

For high school graduates, the top job categories were food service (9.6 percent), retail sales (8.2 percent) and driving or delivery-related machine operation (7.8 percent).

Among those with college degrees, education specialists made up the largest group at 7.4 percent, followed by engineers and technicians at 6.9 percent.

The ministry said that the rise in the minimum wage and nominal wages increased the share of higher-income workers. It also added that the proportion of workers earning less than 1 million won also rose, largely due to government job programs for seniors and nonresidential welfare center jobs, such as caregiving positions.

By industry, the highest share of employees earning more than 4 million won was in the professional, scientific and technical services sector (51.1 percent), followed by information and communications (50.1 percent) and finance and insurance (49.4 percent).

As of April, the total number of employees stood at 28.8 million, up 194,000 from a year earlier.