Helsinki (30.07.2015 - Heikki Jokinen)

CEO incomes of the major listed companies have reached their highest levels in the last ten years. These top incomes rose by 8.3 per cent in a year.  At the same time the income of those Finns working full time rose by 1.5 per cent.

The figures are from a report carried out by the leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. It has been tracking the top CEOs incomes of the same 43 listed companies for ten years now.

The salary and bonuses of the major company CEOs was last year 79 000 euro more than a year before. This amount is almost double the average full time salary in Finland, 41 350 euro.

The gap between CEOs and an average worker continues to grow. The salary of an average CEO is now worth 25 times the average employee. Five years ago the ratio was one to 21.

Since 2005 CEO salaries and bonuses have been growing by 297 000 euro or 40 per cent. An average worker has seen a pay rise of 32 per cent or 10 100 euro.
In some cases the CEO income have been increasing rapidly at the same time as these companies have been making major redundancies.

The paper mill UPM CEO Jussi Pesonen has negotiated a guaranteed pay-off of 2.7 million euro in the event of a possible dismissal. In January UPM laid off almost 400 workers in Finland and in the UK.

”The CEOs income development is in a completely different league than that of wage and salary earners”, says trade union confederation SAK Director of working life and social affairs Saana Siekkinen to the newspaper Taloussanomat.

Siekkinen sees the income development of CEOs as being in contradiction and in stark contrast to the moderate income policy that wage and salary earners are being asked to follow.

”It would be good if they could show an example by their own action.”