GSK Korea pays the highest average salary at KRW 136M

Analyzing average salary in 31 multinational pharmaceutical company in Korea

More than a half, 19 out of 31 companies paid out average of over KRW 80 million per person

7 companies including Sanofi Pasteur paid out average of over KRW 100 million per person

Among all Korean affiliates of multinational pharmaceutical companies, employees at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Korea have received the highest average salary of 136 million won.

 

Employees working at Sanofi Pasteur, GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea, Galderma Korea, Allergan Korea, Boehringer Ingelheim Korea and AbbVie Korea have received average salary of over 100 million won.

 

Average salary per employee at major multinational pharmaceutical companies in 2019 (Unit: 1 million won) Source: FSS

On Apr.

 

18, an analysis of 31 audit reports submitted to Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) by multinational pharmaceutical companies found GSK’s average salary at 136 million won was the highest among the surveyed companies.

 

The average salary per employee was calculated by dividing the total paid out salary of respective companies last year by the number of employees, confirmed in the audit report.

 

The figures were found in the ‘selling and administrative expense’ section of the submitted reports excluding benefit expense, bonus, incentives and severance payment.

 

The wages of Korea Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Janssen Korea’s facility staffs were calculated from production cost and the wages of clinical trial staffs were calculated from R&D cost.

 

Compared to the year before, GSK’s overall employment salary in 2019 has gone down by 1.8 percent at 59.8 billion won.

 

In 2019, total 444 employees were reportedly working at GSK.

 

Although the overall salary payout was lower than the year before, the number of employees went down as well in 2019 by 14, which increased the average salary per employee by 1.3 percent.

 

Continuing from 2017 to last year, GSK has topped the highest salary rank for the multinational pharmaceutical companies in Korea.

 

Compared to the runner-up Sanofi Pasteur, the gap between the two top companies’ average salary per employee is approximately 17 million won, which has been narrowed slightly from the previous year.

 

The employees at Sanofi Pasteur have been paid the average salary of 119 million won last year.

 

The number of employees was reduced from 65 in 2018 to 61 in 2019, but the total salary has gone up by 1.1 percent, bring up the average salary by 7.7 percent compared to the year before.

 

The report analysis confirmed the average salary per employee at GSK Consumer Healthcare Korea (113 million won), Galderma Korea (112 million won), Allergan Korea (107 million won) and AbbVie Korea (102 million won) exceeded over 100 million won.

 

More than half of the companies, 19 out of 31 multinational companies have paid out average salary of over 80 million won.

 

As for Sanofi-Aventis Korea, last year’s average salary per employee was at 68 million won, reduced by 11.0 percent compared to the previous year at 76 million won.

 

The multinational company has merged with Genzyme Korea last year and the number of employees has surged by 64 from 442 to 506.

 

Considering the overall salary payout has gone up only by 1.9 percent from 33.73 billion won in 2018 to 34.37 billion won in 2019, the average salary per employee has technically gone down.

 

However, the net pay per employee could have gone up depending on their respective performance.

 

Sanofi-Aventis reported last year that it paid out bonus and extra pay (1 billion won) and incentives (2.6 billion won), besides the overall salary of 34.4 billion won, as personnel expenses.

 

The employees at Genzyme Korea have received average salary of 73 million won last year, and the yearly comparison data is unavailable since the merge with Sanofi-Aventis.

 

Among all 31 companies, employees at Janssen Vaccines have been paid the least with average salary of 4 million won.

 

According to the report, the company has paid out overall 647 million won as personnel expenses for 145 employees, reported as of late last year.

 

Since 2016, Janssen Vaccines has been in the red for four consecutive years.

 

Regardless, the reported total personnel expenses are questionable, as the company intends to minimize operating personnel and reduce production volume while reorganizing the anticancer treatment and next-generation vaccine production lines.

 

Moreover, the analysis is likely to be inaccurate in parts, because calculating the average salary by dividing the selling and administrative expense by the number of employees would not fully reflect the accurate figures of companies with production facility in Korea like Korea Otsuka Pharmaceutical and Janssen Korea, as they reflect the facility employee wage as production cost.

 

Spun off from Pfizer Korea last year, Pfizer Upjohn Korea has reported overall personnel expenses of 15 billion won.

 

Dividing the total by the number of employee reported late December, the 264 employees have received average salary of 57 million won per person.

 

But as the report omitted the figures before the spin-off (May 27, 2019), the actual figure could differ from their net pay.

 

Last year, Pfizer Korea has paid approximate average salary of 92 million won per employee, slightly lower than 97 million won in 2018 before the split with Pfizer Upjohn Korea.