The pay gap between CEOs and employees continues to widen

In one hour, the leaders of hundreds of large companies around the world will have amassed as much money as employees will have earned in... a year. This gap continues to widen, with CEO compensation having increased by 50% since 2019, or 56 times more than employee salaries. In an analysis published on the occasion of May 1st, International Workers' Day, the NGO Oxfam cross-referenced data from 1,984 companies in 35 countries (excluding China, including a sample of 18 groups in France), where CEO compensation exceeded $1 million last year (including bonuses and stock options), according to information from the S&P Capital IQ database, with statistics on average real salaries in these countries during the same period provided by the International Labor Organization.

The median compensation of CEOs worldwide has thus reached $4.3 million (€3.8 million) in 2024, compared to $2.9 million (adjusted for inflation) in 2019. This increase, Oxfam points out, "far exceeds the increase in real average employee salaries, which was barely 0.9% during the same period in countries where CEO compensation data is available." A divide denounced by Amitabh Behar, the executive director of Oxfam International, in a press release: "Year after year, we see the same grotesque spectacle: CEO compensation explodes while employee salaries virtually stagnate. This is not an anomaly; this phenomenon is systemic."

Gender pay gaps are also persistent. In this same global sample, not only are women rare in leading these large companies—they represent only 5.7% of CEOs—but female employees in these countries are paid on average 16.7% less than their male colleagues in 2023.

France is no exception to these growing gaps. Two years ago, Oxfam noted that across 100 large French companies, executive compensation was on average 97 times higher than that of their employees. In its annual study on the same subject published in November, the Proxinvest firm calculated that the difference between the average emoluments of employees of CAC 40 groups and those of their executives had almost never been as marked as in 2023 (except in 2021). This "equity ratio" reached 94, compared to 74 in 2014. Shareholders have found little to complain about.

With the general meeting (GM) season in full swing, those during which the ever-increasing compensation of CEOs is contested are not so frequent. On April 14, for example, Stellantis shareholders were asked to vote on the remuneration committee report submitted to them at the struggling automaker's AGM in Amsterdam. This text notably contained the remuneration of Carlos Tavares, its former CEO, for 2024 (€23.1 million), his bonus (€10 million), and his severance pay (€2 million). Only a third of them voted against.