The starting salary of workers at Hyundai Motor Group was revealed to be the highest among the country’s 1,000 largest companies.

According to a survey released on Monday by online recruiter Saram In, the paycheck of a Hyundai Motor freshman stood at 61 million won ($50,886) per annum as of 2015, followed by Mando-Hella Electronics Corp. and Hyundai Oil Bank which gives each of their freshmen 58 million won. Two regional banks -- Gwangju Bank and JB Bank -- give out salaries of 54.7 million won and 52.4 million per annum to each of their freshmen, respectively.

The vehicle and transportation industry was the highest-paying sector with an average paycheck of 42.8 million won, followed by the finance, construction, steel and machinery, IT and electronics industries.

The pay disparity between large corporations and small-and medium-size firms has widened. Salaries given out by large enterprises went up by an average of 3.2 percent compared to last year. However, those given out by small- and medium-size companies went down 1.4 percent over the same period.  (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)