A record since 2009: in 2024, 60% of executives received a raise, compared to 46% in 2021, before the period of high inflation, shows the annual barometer of remuneration from the Association for the Employment of Executives (Apec), produced in June 2024. In 2023, 59% had already experienced an increase in their income. The median remuneration (fixed and variable) of executives, which was 52,000 euros gross annually in 2022 and 53,000 euros in 2023, increased to 54,000 euros in 2024, an increase of 1.9% in one year.
It is in industry that executives were the most numerous, 72%, to receive raises. Their median remuneration increased from 58,000 euros gross in 2023 to 60,000 euros in 2024 – it was 55,000 in 2021. A sector followed by that of construction, with 60% of executives increased, services, at 58%, commerce , at 55%.
The most frequently increased industrial executives work in energy and water (81%), auto, aero, transport equipment (76%) and chemicals (76%). It is this last sector which distributes the highest executive remuneration (63,000 euros), followed by energy and water (61,000 euros) and the pharmaceutical industry (61,000 euros). It is in the agri-food industry that industry executives earn the least (55,000 euros), even if 69% of them received a raise in 2024.
The industry’s skills needs and its ability to pay good salaries to find them are found in the functions which have most often been increased: 70% of executives in engineering, studies, R&D (for a median remuneration of 50,000 euros ), 68% of those in industrial production and maintenance (60,000 euros).
Loss of purchasing power
Across all sectors, only a quarter of executives benefited from general increases, with most having to negotiate individual increases. 40% did not obtain one. “Faced with inflation, companies have reacted and the share of executives increased in 2024 is significantly higher than before 2021, comments Gilles Gateau, Director General of Apec. But these increases did not follow the inflation curve and since 2021 there has been a clear drop in the purchasing power of executives.”
The Apec barometer also confirms the existence of two black spots: seniors and women. Executives aged 50 and over have remuneration which has stagnated since at least 2021 at 60,000 euros gross annually (median). Their remuneration is today almost identical to that of those in their forties (59,000 euros). “Enough to challenge the preconceived idea that seniors cost more than other employees,” would like to highlight Gilles Gateau.
Women still penalized
As for female executives, they continue to earn 12% less than men. For equivalent professions and sectors, the “unexplained” gap between the salaries of women and men falls to 6.9%, but it has hardly decreased since 2019 (7.1%). “As much as it takes time to change the structural reasons for the salary gap between women and men, by pushing women towards positions of responsibility, there are immediate levers of action to reduce this gap,” judge Gilles Gateau, who reduced that of Apec below 2%. He notes an encouraging sign in the 2024 barometer: “For the first time, there are almost as many augmented women as men” – 59% of the former, for 60% of the latter.
For the first time this year, Apec is providing a study of executive increases and remuneration by region, and within these, by sector of activity. If, unsurprisingly, it is in Ile-de-France that remuneration is the highest (58,000 euros), it is in Franche-Comté (52,000 euros) that there have been the most executive increases (64 %) in 2024, and in Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine the least (56%). It is in these two regions that executive salaries are the lowest, at 49,000 and 50,000 euros gross annually respectively.
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
