MNC employees earn ₩91 million on average

Survey on the average salary of 24 Korean subsidiaries of multinational pharmaceutical companies

Average salary of 17 out of the 24 companies is more than 80 million won

Average salary of 9 companies including GSK, Boehringer Ingelheim Korea, Sanofi Pasteur exceed 100 million won

GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea employees received on average a salary of 150 million won last year.

 

Employees at GSK Korea, Boehringer Ingelheim Korea, Sanofi Pasteur, Viatris Korea, Kyowa Kirin Korea, Galderma Korea, Pfizer Korea, and Abbvie Korea also received an average salary of over 100 million won.

 

According to the Financial Supervisory Service on the 13th, employees and executives working at 24 Korean subsidiaries of multinational pharmaceutical companies had earned 91 million won on average last year.

 

The amount is based on the salary of 471,742 executives and employees at 24 Korean subsidiaries of multinational pharmaceutical companies that submitted audit reports to the Financial Supervisory Service by April 12th.

 

The average salary per person was calculated by dividing the total salary paid by the number of employees and executives listed in the audit report.

 

Only the salary item in the selling and administrative expenses (SG&A) of the audit report was counted, and other items including the welfare benefits, bonuses, performance-related pay, and retirement allowances were excluded from the calculation.

 

However, the amount may differ somewhat from the actual net pay received by employees depending on the description method of labor cost in each company.

 

GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea paid a total of 12.861 billion won in employee wages last year.

 

The number of executives and employees working at GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea as of last year was 87.

 

As the number of executives and employees stayed the same while the total salary increased by 30.7% from the previous year, the average salary per employee rose by nearly 35 million won.

 

GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea also paid nearly 20 billion won to its retired employees last year.

 

Among the SG&A items, expenses listed as retirement allowance were 1.59 billion won, and 17.31 billion won was retirement bonuses.

 

However, as the number of employees was the same as the previous year, it is difficult to determine the specific number of resignations.

 

GSK Korea, which had kept its position as the top-paid multinational pharmaceutical company based on annual salary until 2019, ranked second place this year by a narrow margin.

 

GSK paid 61.64 billion won in salaries last year, a 3.1% increase from the previous year.

 

The number of executives and employees working at GSK as of last year was 434.

 

With 7 less employees than the year before, the average salary of its people rose by 4.6%.

 

However, as the increase rate fell short of the rate of GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea’s, GSK Korea’s rank fell one level.

 

Boehringer Ingelheim Korea’s average salary rose by 27.4% per employee, which was the second-highest rate of increase after GSK Consumer Health Korea.

 

Boehringer Ingelheim Korea paid 21.26 billion won in salaries last year.

 

The company ranked 3rd place with an average salary of 133 million won, a 28 million won increase from the previous year.

 

Sanofi Pasteur executives and employees received 129 million won on average as annual salary last year.

 

As its number of employees decreased from 61 in 2019 to 53 at the end of 2020 while its total salary increased by 11.1%, the average salary per person rose 27.9% from the previous year.

 

Also, companies including Viatris Korea (126 million won), Kyowa Kirin Korea (118 million won), Galderma Korea (103 million won), Pfizer Korea (102 million won), and Abbvie Korea (100 million won) also had an annual salary that exceeds 100 million won.

 

Among the 24 companies surveyed, 9 companies had an average salary of over 100 million won, and 17 companies had an average salary of over 80 million won.

 

The net pay that the executives and employees actually received may be higher depending on their individual performance.

 

In the audit report, Sanofi-Aventis Korea had stated that it had paid bonuses and wages (2.8 billion won) and performance-based pay (3.3 billion won) in addition to the 47.8 billion won as labor costs.

 

Sanofi Pasteur also listed bonuses and wages (0.4 billion won) and performance-based pay (0.8 billion won) separately from salaries.

 

Amgen Korea had also paid 3.2 billion won as bonuses apart from the 13.8 billion won paid as salaries.

 

In companies that have local manufacturing facilities such as Korea Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Janssen Korea, the actual net pay received by employees was found to be much different from the average salary listed in the audit.

 

As these companies list wages of factory employees as production cost and the salary of clinical team employees and R&D cost., the method dividing the salary listed on SG&A by the number of employees could not accurately reflect the net pay received by their employees.

 

As of last year, the average pay received by executives and employees of multinational pharmaceutical companies far exceeded the amount received by those at listed companies in Korea.

 

Last year, the average salary of 30 KOSPI and KOSDAQ-listed biopharmaceutical companies were 70.4 million won.

 

The amount is an average of the total salary of 2.43 trillion won that was paid to 34,323 employees and internal directors in the 30 companies.

 

Simply calculated without considering the continuous years of service or position of the employees, the average salary per person in domestic pharmaceutical companies is lower by 20 million won.

 

24 companies - GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer Ingelheim Korea, Sanofi Pasteur, Viatris Korea, Kyowa Kirin Korea, Galderma Korea, Pfizer Korea, AbbVie Korea, Lundbeck Korea, Sanofi-Aventis Korea, Amgen Korea, UCB Korea, Bayer Korea, Servier Korea, Lilly Korea, AstraZeneca Korea, Baxter Korea, Guerbet Korea, Novo Nordisk, Menarini Korea, Teva-Handok, Korea Otsuka Pharmaceutical, Janssen Korea - were included in the survey.

 

Among the 25 Korean subsidiaries of multinational pharmaceutical companies that submitted an audit report by April 12th, Janssen Vaccine was excluded as it had minimized its operation of production facilities as well as operating personnel until the production line around its anticancer drugs and next-generation vaccines is reorganized.