Executive pay in the tech and telecom sector is outrageous

FierceWireless published its annual list of the 25 highest paid executives in cable, telecom, and wireless. The list shows how outrageous executive pay is in the tech and telecom sector. It’s also interesting to note where the highest paid executives work. For example, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had the highest 2016 total compensation with almost $200 million, but Apple had the most executives on the list with six positions. Charter and Comcast were the companies with the next most executives with five and four, respectively.

In the table below, we added an extra point to FierceWIreless’s data. We compared each executive’s 2016 compensation with the average salary of a telecommunications worker. According to CES data via the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average worker in the telecommunications industry earns a weekly pay of $1,154.48 or $60,108 annualized. Based on these figures, AT&T’s CEO Randall Stevenson makes 473 times the average telecom worker. Google’s CEO makes 3,323 times the workers who build the infrastructure that makes his business possible. The average CEO-to-worker ratio in the US is 274-to-1.

Links:

The 25 highest paid executives in cable, telecom and wireless (FierceWireless, July 21, 2017)

CEOs make 276 times more than typical workers (Economic Policy Institute, Aug. 3, 2016)