Social affairs minister Lodewijk Asscher has described the reported increases in senior executive salaries as ‘incomprehensible’ given that so many people have had their pay frozen.

Last week the Volkskrant reported that basic executive pay has gone up 6% to €512,000. Including bonuses and pension deals, executive pay at 134 large firms rose an average 7.5% to €1.13m.

Asscher said in a briefing to parliament he would like to require companies to give a written explanation to their workforce about salary strategy in their annual reports.

It would reflect well on senior executives if their pay developments reflected those among workers in general, the Labour minister said.