In India, Low Wages Start at the Top

Claw your way to the top executive ranks of a state-owned bank in India, and you’ll earn little more than the cooks at McDonald’s or Burger King in Los Angeles International Airport, where the minimum wage is $11.03 an hour for employees with health benefits and $15.84 for those without. In India, state-run bank chiefs make about $11.48 an hour. They do get perks: health insurance, a car, a driver, and free housing. Still, the heads of India’s five biggest state-owned banks earn salaries and bonuses of 2 million to 2.5 million rupees ($32,600 to $40,700), according to the latest data available. That works out to 705 rupees an hour on average for what bank spokesmen say are workweeks that total 60 hours and include Saturdays.

The average top salaries are less than 5 percent of those at India’s private banks, where chief executive officers also earn stock options. “They should be paid more and offered stock options like their peers in the private sector, as they are pulling the same weight,” says Aditya Narayan Mishra, president of staffing in India for human resources firm Randstad Holding.