Pay gap widens: highest earners increase lead on other workers

The biggest earners at the Netherlands’ 1,000 largest companies now earn almost six times as much as the median salary in their firm, the national statistics office CBS said on Wednesday.

The five highest earners had a gross salary averaging €234,000 in 2014. This was 5.8 times the earnings of workers in the middle of the salary spread. In 2010, the gap was 5.5 with top salaries averaging €206,000.

In 2014, the average salary for full-time workers was €48,000, the CBS said. Taking part-time wages into account, the average Dutch wage was €33,000. Average salaries have only risen marginally since then.

Financial services

The pay gap is most extreme in the financial services sector – where top executives earned nearly 12 times the median income in 2014. One in 10 financial services sector workers earns more than €100,000 a year.

However, the CBS pointed out, the pay gap has decreased considerably since 2010, when top earners pulled in more than 15 times the median salary. The smallest pay gaps are in the education, healthcare and public services sectors.

The research also shows that there has been a slight increase – two percentage points – in the number of women included in the ranks of the highest earners. Women now account for 19% of top paid corporate officials.

In addition, 86 of the biggest 1,000 firms have a primarily female executive layer. Of them, 60 are healthcare companies, the CBS said.