"Bonus Strike Looms" Samsung Electronics Employees Earned 12 Million Won a Month, Up 25% in a Year

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[The Financial News] A survey found that the average compensation for Samsung Electronics employees in the first quarter of this year was about 36 million won. That works out to roughly 12 million won a month, up 25% from the same period last year and the highest level on record.
According to the "Analysis of Expected Average Salaries for Samsung Electronics Employees in the First Quarter of 2026" released on the 18th by Korea CXO Research Institute, a corporate analysis specialist, total employee pay in the first quarter came to between 4.2584 trillion won and 4.7907 trillion won.
The institute estimated the figure based on a consistent pattern in Samsung Electronics' past first-quarter reports, where the ratio between "salary under cost by nature" and total employee pay ranged from 76% to 85.5%. This year, salary under cost by nature in the first quarter stood at 5.6032 trillion won.
Korea CXO Research Institute then applied Samsung Electronics' average headcount of 125,580 employees, based on National Pension Service (NPS) enrollment data for the first quarter, to calculate average compensation of 33.91 million to 38.15 million won. That comes to 11.3 million to 12.7 million won a month, with the midpoint at about 36 million won for the quarter, or around 12 million won per month.
Using the same method, average compensation for Samsung Electronics employees in the first quarter of last year was estimated at 27.07 million to 30.46 million won. Based on that, this year's first-quarter average rose by more than 25% from a year earlier. Compared with the 11.6% increase from 2023 to 2024, the pace of growth was more than twice as fast.
The pay scale itself also reached an all-time high. Salary under cost by nature, which stood at 4.4547 trillion won in the first quarter of last year, rose to 5.6032 trillion won this year, surpassing 5 trillion won for the first time. Korea CXO Research Institute said the improvement in operating profit in the first quarter helped push employee pay to its highest level ever.
However, since this is only a simple average across all employees, the gap by job level could be wide. Oh Ilseon, head of Korea CXO Research Institute, said, "Samsung Electronics is a company where bonuses matter more than base pay." He added, "If bonuses are included, annual compensation will rise so sharply that the first digit will change."
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bng@fnnews.com Kim Hee-sun Reporter