University graduates earn significantly more than high school graduates, a labor ministry survey showed Friday as the government leads a campaign to increase hiring of those without university diplomas.

Employees sporting a four-year university degree earned an average of 17,170 won (US$16.1) an hour, while those with a high school diploma brought home only 9,944 won, only 57.9 percent of the payment for university graduates, the survey by the Ministry of Employment and Labor showed.

The ministry canvassed 32,000 workplaces across the country in June last year.

Workers with a master's degree, meanwhile, made a far-higher average wage of 26,464 won per hour, while two-year vocational college graduates and those without a high school diploma earned 11,587 won and 8,500 won, respectively.

"Pay gaps between different education levels remained largely unchanged, but showed a little bit of decline recently," a ministry official said. "Although the gaps may reflect different levels of ability, skill and mastery, it is still undesirable to have such wide gaps."

The relatively wide gaps between workers with different levels of education highlight the country's still rampant discrimination against non-college graduate employees.

In a bid to help bridge such gaps, President Lee Myung-bak lamented late last month companies' deep-rooted preference to hiring college graduates and pledged efforts to ease the social malaise in the country, where about 80 percent of high school graduates opt for higher education.

The survey also shed light on a still wide pay gap between the two different genders. Male workers earned 15,095 per hour, but their female counterparts brought home only 9,300 won.

By age groups, workers in their 40's earned the highest hourly wage at 15,044 won, followed by 14,099 won clinched by 30-something employees and 13,666 won by employees in their 50's.

Those in their 20's earned 9,450 won while people aged 60 or over made 9,165 won. Teenagers took home only 5,029 won, according to the survey.

The survey also suggested a link between ages and the number of work hours. People aged 60 or older worked the longest hours at  44.4 hours every week, followed by 43.9 hours by 50-somethings and

43.6 hours by workers in their 40's. Teenagers recorded the shortest weekly labor hours, according to the ministry survey. (Yonhap News)