Women employees of the nation's top 10 business groups and their affiliates received annual salaries which were less than two thirds that of their male counterparts last year, an online conglomerate watchdog said Wednesday.
According to a wage gap analysis by Chaebul.com, the average yearly pay for the female workers was 54.22 million won ($48,000) last year, or 61.8 percent of the amount for the male employees, whose wage was 87.57 million won on average.
The corporate tracker's study was based on the conglomerates' business reports.
Among the 10 business groups, Samsung had the smallest gender pay gap as women received 72.78 million won on average, accounting for 71.9 percent of 111 million won for men. Women workers at Hyundai Motor Group also got paid 71.9 percent of what men earned -- 66.21 million won to 92.11 million won.
SK Group's average wage for women was 66.56 million won compared with 95.77 million won for men, or 69.5 percent, while the pay gap was 69.4 percent at POSCO.
However, retail giants Lotte and GS groups showed the biggest gaps.
Women working for Lotte earned only 41 percent of men's salaries -- 25.36 million won to 61.87 million won although the number of female employees was slightly higher than that of their male counterparts -- 24,325 to 24,244.
Also, women at GS only made 46.9 percent of men's salaries as their average yearly salary was 28.94 million won, compared with men's 61.7 million won.
Women working for Hanwha Group were getting 54.2 percent of men's salaries.
Among specific affiliates of the 10 groups, Hyundai Motor saw the smallest wage gap between men and women as the latter took 78.9 percent of men's pay for last year -- 75 million won to 95 million won. In its sister company Kia Motors, women got paid 77.1 percent of men.
Samsung Electronics' female workers got paid 81 million won on average, 69.8 percent of what men receive, at 116 million won, while the figure was 71 percent for SK Telecom.
Lotte's subsidies showed a wider gender wage gap.
The average pay for women at Lotte Shopping was 25.24 million won, 43.7 percent of men's salaries, while the figure for Lotte Chilsung Beverage was 52.2 percent.
GS Retail's average yearly wage was the lowest among the affiliates with 24.58 million won, but it was 70.2 percent of what men had been paid in 2016.
According to the analysis, the number of men workers, 498,464, far exceeds the number of women workers, 133,235, at the top conglomerates.