With high inflation, companies are under pressure to drive wages up.

Thus, 46% of executives saw a raise in 2021, up sharply from 2020 (38%), and a record number of them could be increased in 2022, according to the annual barometer of executive compensation published this week. Thursday by APEC.

In 2021, the proportion of increased executives almost equaled that of 2019 (48%), underlines the Association for the employment of executives.

Their median gross annual compensation thus reached 51,000 euros (compared to 50,000 in 2020).

It had stagnated between 2018 and 2020.

A gap that is not closing between men and women

This figure hides strong disparities according to gender: at the end of 2021 the gross annual remuneration of male executives is 54,000 euros against 47,000 for female executives, a difference of 15% stable for several years.

With an equivalent profile and position, the gap is 7.4% (it has fluctuated between 7 and 8% for many years).

Young managers were 62% to be increased in 2021, i.e. 12 points more than in 2020 and a level higher than 2019 (60%).

The situation has notably improved significantly for the youngest executives, aged under 30.

Their compensation had retracted in 2020 for the first time in the last 10 years.

But, in 2021, "the situation seems to have returned to normal", underlines Apec.

Salary, a subject of dissatisfaction

For 2022, in a context of tensions on recruitment and inflation not seen for decades, the share of increased executives should be at "a historically high level".

Indeed, surveyed in May 2022, 41% of executives indicated that they had already received an increase since the start of the year, and 18% expected to receive one by the end of the year.

“The record level of 51% of executives increased in 2018 could be exceeded this year”, therefore observes Apec.

Despite these wage efforts, compensation became one of the main areas of dissatisfaction among executives in May, especially among those under 35 (29%, +5 points compared to 2021).

Dissatisfaction with pay is also increasing among 35-54 year olds (27%, +4 points) but remains stable among the oldest (25%, -1 point).

These results come from an annual Apec survey of 13,000 executives in the private sector, and from the May 2022 wave of a monthly survey of 1,000 representative executives.

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