The wage inequality gap continues to widen in large groups. CAC 40 bosses have in fact earned on average 130 times more than the average salary in their companies in 2022, an Oxfam study points out this Tuesday. This represents an increase of approximately 17% since 2019.
“The wealth produced continues to grow” in CAC 40 companies, “yet this redistribution of wealth is inequitable,” laments Oxfam in its report Cash 40: too many millions for a few men. In 1979, these bosses “earned on average only 40 times more than the minimum wage”.
“Disproportionate and disconnected” remuneration
These differences can be explained, according to the NGO, by “excessive and disconnected executive remuneration”: in 2022, these bosses earned on average 6.66 million euros, or 27% more than three years previously. Employees, for their part, saw their salaries increase by only 9%.
Teleperformance displays “by far” the largest pay gap, with its CEO Daniel Julien having earned 1,453 times more than his company’s average salary in 2022, with 19.7 million euros. Just after comes Carrefour, whose CEO earned 426 times more. “Alexandre Bompard earns in just 9 hours the equivalent of the average annual salary of Carrefour employees,” summarizes Léa Guérin, advocacy officer on multinational regulation issues.
Oxfam denounces “toxic” relationship between shareholders and managers
Stellantis boss Carlos Tavares appeared in 2022 “only” on the third step of the podium of bad performers, his 22 million euros representing 341 times more than the average salary at the car manufacturer. An amount already deemed “shocking and excessive” by Emmanuel Macron.
For Oxfam, it is the “toxic” relationship between shareholders and managers which allows the payment of these “stratospheric” remunerations. The fixed portion of executive compensation represented on average 27% in 2022. The variable or share portions represented 69%.
Smaller gaps at Crédit Agricole and Orange
Oxfam is calling for the establishment of a maximum salary, which would represent 20 times the company’s median salary. This is approximately the order of magnitude that we found in 2022 with the average salary at Crédit Agricole (23) or Orange (29).
As for the companies targeted, Teleperformance affirms that this gap between managers and employees is “purely theoretical and not real”. The company emphasizes that its CEO’s remuneration included “performance shares”, so the “retained value” is “not that which the beneficiaries will receive”.
Carrefour also affirms that Oxfam’s calculations do not correspond “to any reality”, since they relate Alexandre Bompard’s remuneration to that of the 334,000 employees around the world, despite “differences in purchasing power” between country.