Fin24 reports that a chairperson in one of the top-ten "super cap" JSE-listed companies can earn more than 300 times the amount that a worker on the minimum wage in SA earns.
According to the latest PwC non-executive directors report, the fee earned by a chairperson in some of the biggest companies in the JSE can go as high as R13.8 million on average. These are people leading boards of "super cap" companies that make up more than two-thirds of the JSE's total market capitalisation, such as Prosus and Anheuser-Busch InBev. Non-executive directors in those companies earned R4 million, on average, in the year to 31 October 2021. On the other hand, the national minimum wage in SA is currently R21.69 per hour. A person working eight hours on that wage for five days a week earns R3,470 a month or lass than R42,000 a year. The PwC report indicates that the "war for talent" is becoming the new gasoline to the unabated runaway executive pay in SA. Activist groups, asset managers and other shareholders have been pulling all stops to quell high executive pay globally and narrow the gap between what the lowest-paid worker and CEOs take home in unequal societies like SA. But the PwC report shows that the Great Resignation movement has left companies scrambling to retain the critical talent. Even though workers aren’t leaving their employers in droves in SA, PwC says the local economy is also facing "notable challenges" with finding the right skills needed by firms because of increased emigration and other pressures. "Creative retention arrangements, which are more sophisticated than cash alone, are becoming an increasingly important weapon in the talent war," says PwC's Leila Ebrahimi.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Londiwe Buthelezi at Fin24
- Read too, PwC report highlights income disparities between SA’s corporate elite and working poor, at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
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