CEOs earn the average South African’s annual wage in just over seven hours, making them the fastest earners in the world, according to the findings of a Quartz survey released on Friday.
"It took CEOs in SA just over seven hours to make $13‚194 (R180‚000)‚ which is the country’s average yearly wage‚" said study author Aamna Modin.
"Assuming Monday‚ January 2‚ was a public holiday and they started work at 7.30am on Tuesday‚ CEOs in SA clocked in the annual average wage by 3pm that day," Modin said.
In October‚ it was reported that a Checkers delicatessen employee would need to work for about 290 years to earn what Shoprite CE Whitey Basson makes in a month.
In the financial year to June‚ Basson received R49.7m in basic pay and a performance bonus of R50m.
Quartz arrived at the result by combining data from Britain’s High Pay Centre‚ which monitors pay at the top of the income distribution‚ with Bloomberg’s Global CEO Pay Index, and average worker pay in several countries.
"While CEOs in SA make far less on average than their American counterparts‚ their salaries were 541 times more than the average income in their own country‚" said Modin.
SA is the only African country in the top five‚ which includes the US‚ the UK‚ Canada and Switzerland.
TMG Digital/The Times
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