CNN has developed an online tool to measure how your salary stacks up against the global average as well as where you place in your own country.
The media company developed the application to draw attention to the World Economic Forum in Davos. The organisation’s Human Capital Report 2015 ranked South Africa 92nd in terms of “high educational attainment and a correspondingly large share of high-skilled employment”.
The tool works when you input your annual salary and it returns a comparison with typical salaries in your country, as well as with those in the rest of the world.
CNN Money, though, was careful to point out that the calculations were not empirically scientific and based largely on poll results from users of the portal.
Despite that, an annual salary of R65 000 (about R5 400/month) returned a result of the average taxi driver salary in South Africa, or about 37% of the country average of R174 360/year (about R14 500/month).
A salary of R100 000/year (about R8 300/month) is 95% of the global average annual salary of US$19 188 (about R230 000/year or about R19 000/month) or six times what a teacher in Ethiopia earns.
Skill levels of workers have a direct implication for salary earned.
According to Statistics South Africa, at the end of 2014, 25% of South African workers are skilled versus 21% in 1994.
However, StatsSA numbers show that white workers were primarily responsible for the increase in skilled workers. Skilled white workers increased from 42% in 1994 to 61% in 2014.
Black skilled workers increased by only 15% to 18% over the same 20-year period.
In terms of leadership positions, StatsSA found that Indians experienced the highest increase (26%), followed by whites (19%), coloureds (11%) and blacks (3%). — Fin24
