{"id":85848,"date":"2015-04-28T00:05:06","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T22:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=85848"},"modified":"2015-04-28T07:59:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T05:59:58","slug":"sa-telcos-with-the-highest-average-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/85848\/sa-telcos-with-the-highest-average-salaries\/","title":{"rendered":"SA telcos that pay the most"},"content":{"rendered":"

CEOs from SA telco companies are earning between 20 and 70 times more than their average employee payout – but employees in the sector aren’t earning too poorly either.<\/p>\n

The biggest pay gap\u00a0exists at MTN Group, where CEO Sifiso Dabengwa was awarded over R28.1 million in the 2014 financial year.<\/p>\n

MTN has approximately 22,000 employees across the group, and spent R8.84 billion on salaries and bonuses in the year – paying\u00a0an average of R401,727 per employee.<\/p>\n

This means Dabengwa’s pay was 70 times more than the average employee – far higher than the 38x average in the telco sector.<\/p>\n

This gap is half the 141x gap in 2013, when Dabengwa’s salary hit R48 million.<\/p>\n

Both MTN and Altron – home to Altech – pull the average higher, with the latter’s CEO, Robbie Venter, drawing a salary almost 50 times larger than the average employee.<\/p>\n

In the 2014 financial year, Altron paid R4.68 billion in salaries to its 12,904 employees – averaging R362,678 per person.<\/p>\n

Venter’s salary was also the second-highest in the sector – R17.7 million.<\/p>\n

Highest average salaries<\/h3>\n

Embattled power utility Eskom made waves in 2014 when it was revealed that, on average, employees were paid well over half a million rand amid a financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Then-CEO Brian Dames drew R15.4 million over the same period, which is 28 times higher than the R557,000 average.<\/p>\n

Looking at the telco sector, Vodacom offers the highest average pay.<\/p>\n

Vodacom Group’s 2014 report indicated it had 7,225 employees and returned R4.61 billion to them\u00a0through salaries and bonuses – leading to a group average of R637,924 per employee.<\/p>\n

CEO Shameel Joosub’s salary for the year was R12.98 million – 20 times higher than the average, and the smallest pay gap in the sector.<\/p>\n

The table below shows telco companies’ average salaries. Eskom has been included for context.<\/p>\n

Average salaries<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Company<\/strong><\/td>\nNo.\u00a0of employees<\/strong><\/td>\nSalary spend<\/strong><\/td>\nAverage<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vodacom<\/td>\n7 225<\/td>\nR4.61\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR637 924<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eskom<\/td>\n46 000<\/td>\nR25.6 billion<\/td>\nR556 957<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Telkom<\/td>\n19 718<\/td>\nR9.31\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR471 955<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MTN<\/td>\n22 000<\/td>\nR8.84 billion<\/td>\nR401 727<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Altron<\/td>\n12 904<\/td>\nR4.68\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR362 687<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Blue Label<\/td>\n1 176<\/td>\nR0.33 billion<\/td>\nR282 774<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Pay gaps<\/h3>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Company<\/strong><\/td>\nEmployee Average<\/strong><\/td>\nCEO pay<\/strong><\/td>\nGap (times greater)<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MTN<\/td>\nR401 727<\/td>\nR28.13\u00a0million<\/td>\n70<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Altron<\/td>\nR362 687<\/td>\nR17.73\u00a0million<\/td>\n49<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eskom<\/td>\nR556 957<\/td>\nR15.4 million<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Telkom<\/td>\nR471 955<\/td>\nR11.71\u00a0million<\/td>\n25<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Blue Label<\/td>\nR282 774<\/td>\nR6.08 million<\/td>\n24<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vodacom<\/td>\nR637 924<\/td>\nR12.98\u00a0million<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

CEO pay as % of salary spend<\/h3>\n

According to research conducted by Mergence Investment\u00a0in 2014, Shoprite\u00a0has the biggest pay gap of all companies listed on the JSE, with CEO\u00a0Whitey Basson earning 725 times more than the average employee.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0research, South Africa sits with the 5th highest\u00a0average pay gap in the world, after the USA (1st), Hong Kong (2nd), Germany (3rd), and the UK (4th).<\/p>\n

The group noted that, given the size and scale of the companies on the JSE, “the amounts that are paid to executives are small relative to the total salary bill of the company and to the operating expenses of the company”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis incentivises corporate boards and shareholders to spend to obtain the best management teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

In context of the SA telco sector, executive salaries as a percentage of total salary spend is relatively small, except for Blue Label Telecom where far fewer people are employed.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Company<\/strong><\/td>\nCEO pay<\/strong><\/td>\nSalary spend<\/strong><\/td>\n% of spend<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Blue Label<\/td>\nR6.08 million<\/td>\nR0.33 billion<\/td>\n2.04%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Altron<\/td>\nR17.73\u00a0million<\/td>\nR4.68\u00a0billion<\/td>\n0.38%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
MTN<\/td>\nR28.13\u00a0million<\/td>\nR8.84 billion<\/td>\n0.32%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vodacom<\/td>\nR12.98\u00a0million<\/td>\nR4.61\u00a0billion<\/td>\n0.28%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Telkom<\/td>\nR11.71\u00a0million<\/td>\nR9.31\u00a0billion<\/td>\n0.13%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Eskom<\/td>\nR15.4 million<\/td>\nR25.6 billion<\/td>\n0.06%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n

Wealth disparity was a major focus\u00a0in 2014 when\u00a0charity\u00a0<\/span>organisation Oxfam highlighted that it would take 228 years for the world’s richest man – Bill Gates – to spend his fortune at $1 million a day.<\/p>\n

The group noted that the gap between rich and poor\u00a0is rapidly increasing, and economic inequality has reached extreme levels.<\/p>\n

Mergence’s research also found that the pay gap between CEOs and employees in South Africa has shown\u00a0an\u00a0upward trend in the past five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important for shareholders to engage company management seriously on this issue to attempt to mitigate the risks posed by the high levels of income inequality within South Africa, both to the long-term safety of their capital as well as to South African society as a whole,\u201d\u00a0the group\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

More on salaries<\/h3>\n

MTN CEO\u2019s massive R28 million salary<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

How to clamp down on executive pay<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s massive wage gap<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African telco CEOs command some of the highest salaries in the country, but, on average, their employees aren’t faring too badly either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":59183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26,28,8059,1439,65,27],"class_list":["post-85848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-pay-gap","tag-salaries","tag-telkom","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85848"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86026,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85848\/revisions\/86026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}