The labor costs for South Korean conglomerates have risen at a pace over the past decade faster than the growth in their bottom lines, data showed Wednesday.

The average salary paid by 72 out of the country's top 100 companies by market capitalization to their workers, came to 69.6 million won ($59,900) last year, up 46.3 percent from 2005, according to the data compiled by corporate researcher CEO Score.

In contrast, the surveyed firms' operating income grew at the slower pace of 20.3 percent over the cited period to 47.78 trillion won, with their ratio of operating income to sales, a key profitability measurement, dipping to 6 percent from 10.4 percent, the data showed.

During the cited period, the country's inflation rose 27 percent, and their wage growth was higher than the 32.7 percent rise in the overall pay rise for all salaried workers.

By firm, workers at Kakao Corp., the operator of the country's most popular messenger app, saw their wage more than quadruple over the cited period to 175 million won.

CJ Corp., the holding firm of the food and entertainment conglomerate, came next by more than doubling its workers' wages, followed by Daewoo International Corp., a trading firm, and tech behemoth Samsung Electronics Co., whose workers saw their salaries almost double over the cited period, the data showed. (Yonhap)