SEOUL — Employees at Samsung Electronics received an average gross compensation of approximately 36 million won ($27,000 USD) per person in the first quarter of this year, equivalent to a monthly salary of roughly 12 million won ($9,000 USD), a corporate tracker report showed Tuesday.

The Korea CXO Institute, a leading local corporate analysis firm, released its "Q1 2026 Estimated Average Salary Analysis for Samsung Electronics," revealing that the tech giant’s employee compensation surged by more than 25% compared to the same period last year.

The institute estimated the Q1 average salary to fall within the range of 34 million to 38 million won. When broken down monthly, the company's 125,000-plus workforce took home an average of 12 million won per month between January and March. However, the research firm cautioned that because this figure represents a simple average of the entire workforce, high-ranking executives and core technical talent likely received substantially more, while entry-level employees likely fell below the mean.

 
Unlocking the Data: Creative Financial Analysis
Tracking quarterly salaries at major South Korean conglomerates has become notoriously difficult since 2022, following an amendment by the Financial Supervisory Service that relaxed mandatory quarterly disclosures. Major corporations are now only required to publish detailed employee salary data twice a year—in their half-year and annual business reports.

To bypass this hurdle, the Korea CXO Institute developed a tracking methodology based on historical correlation. By analyzing past Q1 reports from 2018 to 2021, the institute discovered a consistent mathematical relationship between "salaries categorized by nature" in the footnotes of financial statements and the actual "total employee salary volume" officially disclosed.

Applying this historical ratio (ranging between 76% and 85.5%) to Samsung's Q1 separate financial statement footnotes—which listed salary expenses at a record 5.6032 trillion won—the institute estimated the total payroll to sit between 4.2584 trillion and 4.7907 trillion won. Dividing this by the company's National Pension-registered workforce of 125,580 yielded the final estimates.

Using a median ratio of 81%, the final figure converges at 36 million won for the quarter. This marks a massive spike from the Q1 2025 estimate, which hovered between 27.07 million and 30.46 million won.

 
Record-Breaking Payroll, Yet Labor Costs Drop Relative to Revenue
The institute highlighted that the 25% year-on-year growth rate is more than double the 11.6% increase recorded between 2023 and 2024. This dramatic wage growth is largely attributed to a sweeping turnaround in Samsung's Q1 operating profits.

Remarkably, this represents the first time in Samsung’s history that its first-quarter salary expenses on financial footnotes surpassed the 5 trillion won mark, surging by over 1.14 trillion won (25.8%) from last year's 4.4547 trillion won.

Interestingly, while actual salaries skyrocketed, the burden of labor costs relative to corporate revenue actually decreased due to a massive surge in top-line growth. In 2024, labor expenses (comprising salaries, retirement benefits, and welfare) accounted for 10.2% of separate revenue. In Q1 2026, that ratio plummeted by 3.1 percentage points to a lean 7.1%. This is noticeably lower than the figures recorded in recent years: 9.1% in 2022 and 11.9% in 2023.

 
Looking Ahead: Performance Bonuses Could Push Figures Even Higher
"Samsung Electronics is a company where performance incentives often carry more weight than the base salary," said Oh Il-sun, director of the Korea CXO Institute. "With Q1 compensation already up 25%, annual base salaries are on track to comfortably exceed 140 million won. Once year-end performance bonuses are factored in, total annual compensation will likely jump to an entirely new tier."

Director Oh also used the report to call for regulatory reform regarding corporate transparency. "Even though the mandatory disclosure items for quarterly reports were scaled back after 2022, some companies still voluntarily disclose employee numbers and salary status for the sake of transparent management," Oh noted. "To improve information accessibility for investors and shareholders, it is highly necessary to expand mandatory corporate disclosures once again."

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