The salaries of “fat cats” have fallen by 17% in 2020. The gap between the remuneration of these and the rest of the population has nevertheless reduced.
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Friday, January 7, at 9 am, was the “fat cat day”, literally “big cat day”, nickname that anglophones give highly paid people. That moment was so nicknamed by the British Association High Pay Center, which calculates the day of the year when the great British bosses have already won as an employee for the entire year. In 2022, the “fat cats” had to work hard, waiting for the fourth business day of the year to get to this amount. They usually reached by the third day.
The computation carried out is as follows. In 2020, the median salary of the directors general of the FTSE 100 companies, the main stock index of the country was 2.7 million pounds (3.4 million euros). So they gained 827 pounds (991 euros) per hour, based on a Harvard study, which estimates that these patterns are the days of twelve hours. This necessitated their thirty-eight hours to pocket 31,285 pounds, the median salary of Columbia.
The difference between their salaries and those of the rest of the population has nevertheless reduced. In 2020, their salaries have declined by 17% over the previous year. This decline, after four decades of historical increase, is the consequence of the pandemic. Many bonuses have been suspended or canceled, and some bosses have given up part of their salary.
Fourth consecutive decline
Even before the surge of Covid-19, a cap on salaries of top managers seemed to be emerging. The year of the pandemic marked the fourth consecutive decline. In 2017, the median salary was 3.97 million pounds. It fell to 3.63 million in 2018, 3.25 million in 2019 and, therefore, 2.7 million in 2020, the lowest since 2009. Either still a one-third drop in four years.
This is not enough, says Luke Hildyard, director of the High Pay Center. “The Covid-19 showed us that we depended on each other and some of the lowest paid jobs playing one of the most important roles to continue to operate the company. (…) In this context, the wide difference between the salaries of CEOs and those of ordinary employees is difficult to justify. “
In addition, the downward trend in salaries will stop in 2021, warns the High Pay Center. Most companies have not yet revealed the salary of their boss (they’ll do during the presentation of their annual report), but 57% of those who did have announced an increase, the effect of the pandemic being less violent than initially feared. The real question will be how these emoluments will compare themselves to those of 2019, before CVIV-19. And it will take three or four days to reach the “fat cat day”.