YouTube content creators who work alone earned an average monthly income of 1.78 million won ($1,540) last year, a ruling party lawmaker said Sunday.

Fifty eight "one-person" YouTubers reported a combined annual income of 1.24 billion won ($1.07 million) to the tax authority in 2019, according to Rep. Yang Hyang-ja of the Democratic Party, citing data from National Tax Service.

The figure translates to a monthly income of 1.78 million won per person on average.

Yang said a total of 691 YouTubers have registered their YouTube content creation business with the tax agency since it introduced a new industry code for YouTube creators in September last year. Among them, 332 creators were individuals that work alone without any facilities and receive tax exemption while 359 others worked with their own employees and facilities.

This is the first time that revenue specifics of independent YouTubers have been disclosed.

According to separate data submitted to the National Assembly earlier, the average monthly earnings of the 359 YouTubers was 9.33 million won per person in the second half of 2019. This is more than five times the average monthly salary of YouTubers who worked alone last year.

"Fewer individual YouTube creators register their business or report their income than YouTubers with a large number of subscribers," Yang said, calling for more active measures to encourage them to report their income to the tax authority. (Yonhap)