Photo: Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in Ulsan. Credit: Hyundai Heavy Industries
On a GDP per capita basis, the winner is Ulsan 울산, according to the 2022 data released by the National Tax Service 국세청 on January 27. Overall, South Korea’s average annual wage per capita as of 2022 was KRW 42.1m (USD 31.5k). By geographic area, the southeastern industrial city had an average annual wage per capita of KRW 47.4m (USD 35.5k), outpacing the second-place Seoul 서울, whose average annual wage per capita was KRW 46.8m (USD 35.0k).
Ulsan, known for its steel mills, shipyards and automobile factories, is a fertile source of well-paying blue collar jobs, giving the manufacturing base the nation’s highest average wage. The richest workers, however, live in Seoul by a significant margin. The top 0.1% of Ulsan’s wage workers earn KRW 700m (USD 524k) a year, while the top 0.1% of Seoul’s wage workers earn KRW 1.39b (USD 1.04m) a year.
Seoul also ranked highest in the country for income inequality, with the top 20% of wage workers earning 18x the income of the bottom 20%. The most equal city in South Korea was Sejong 세종, the administrative capital where most residents are government workers. The top 20% of Sejong’s wage workers earned 9.6x the wages of the bottom 20%, approximately half of Seoul’s wage gap.