Top CEOs make workers’ yearly salaries in just FOUR days
Leaders of some of the UK’s biggest companies will have made more money by 9am local time (10pm NZDT) on January 7 than the average UK worker earns in a year.
A new analysis from the High Pay Centre, a UK think-tank that campaigns for fair pay for workers, suggests that a FTSE 100 chief executive (working at any of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange) will have earned more than an average full-time UK worker’s annual salary.
The High Pay Centre’s calculations are based on government statistics relating to pay levels across the economy, as well as previous analyses of CEO pay disclosures in annual reports.
Today the median FTSE100 CEO's earnings for 2022 will surpass the median annual wage for a full-time worker in the UK
Such extreme inequality is immoral, unacceptable & unsustainable. Wealth in this country has to be shared more fairly & more evenly@HighPayCentre— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) January 7, 2022
This year marks the first in the last ten years of reporting by the High Pay Centre where CEOs have made the same amount as average UK workers within the first four working days of the year. In previous reports, CEOs have typically surpassed the average yearly wage by January 6.
According to data from 2020 - the latest full-year figures - FTSE100 CEOs were paid £2.7 million ($NZD 5.43 million) on average that year, which is nearly 86 times the average salary of £31, 285 ($NZD 62,948), as reported by The Guardian.
The 2020 financial year saw the average wage for CEOs fall, with many bosses taking wage cuts and cancelling their bonuses during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown.
Today is #HighPayDay.
Just prior to 9am today, CEOs' earnings for 2022 will surpass the median UK full time salary.
As key workers face a cost of living crisis, we need urgent action to ensure wealth is shared more fairly in our society. https://t.co/RC5ah2daxs— High Pay Centre (@HighPayCentre) January 7, 2022
Though most companies are yet to release figures for the financial year ending in 2021, the High Pay Centre’s report found that 57 percent of those who have done so have recorded increased wages for CEOs.
The country’s biggest unions have said the disparity between bosses and ordinary workers was “disgraceful”, demanding that companies be forced to appoint a frontline worker to executive pay committees.
“The pandemic has shown us all who keeps the country going during a crisis,” Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the Trade Union Congress, said.
“There are millions of hardworking people in Britain - from carers, to delivery drivers, to shop floor staff - who give more than they get back, but greedy executives are taking home millions while ordinary workers face yet another year of pay squeezes.
“As we emerge from the pandemic we need to redesign the economy to make it fair, and that means big reforms to bring CEO pay back down to earth.”
Ms O’Grady said committees that set CEO pay must be “required to include workforce representatives who can speak up for a fairer balance of pay with ordinary workers”.
“Incentive schemes for company directors should be replaced by profit-share schemes that include the whole workforce,” she added.
“Too much wealth is being hoarded at the top.”
Top earners in the UK included Pascal Soriot, the CEO of vaccine-maker AstraZeneca, who received £15.5 million ($NZD 31.2 million), Berkeley’s Rob Perrins, who collected £8 million ($NZD 16 million), and Experian’s Brian Cassin, who earned £10.3 million ($NZD 20.7 million).
Meanwhile in Australia, the Australian Financial Review found that the paychecks of the country’s top bosses increased on average by 24 percent in the 2020-21 financial year, with Macquarie Group CEO Shemara Wikramanayake topping the list of high-earners with a reported pay of $15.97 million ($NZD 16.93 million).
As for New Zealand, a survey conducted by Stuff found that Kiwi CEOs received between 16 and 36 times worker pay, and that only half of the country’s 20 biggest companies were willing to disclose their median pay.
According to the publication, Fletcher Building CEO Ross Taylor was the country’s highest earner, receiving $7 million. Though the company refused to disclose its workers’ median pay, Mr Taylor made nearly 90 times that of his workers if they received the survey’s mean pay of $80,000.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite the Union, took to twitter to criticise the continued heft of CEO salaries despite the pandemic.
“Is it the nurse in an intensive care unit saving the lives of those struck by Covid, or an elite investment banker making millions, who contributes most to society?” she wrote on Twitter.
“Which of them stood up for all of us during the pandemic?”
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