Average China Expatriate Makes USD 276,000 Per Year, Survey Claims

The average expatriate middle manager in China makes USD 276,000 per year, making him (or her) one of the highest-paid expatriates in the world, a survey by consulting firm ECA International claims.

That works out to pay and benefits of approximately RMB 140,000 per month.

Uh, yeah.

But before you go into shock about how underpaid you are, take into account that ECA's figures represent the total benefits package, including salary, housing, insurance, international school tuition, transportation and other non-cash benefits, as well as tax.

Though cash salary figures were not presented separately, a graph of the breakdown of the packages shows that in most cases, non-cash benefits and tax represent more than half the total package in most every country.

From a quick sight reading of the chart, it looks like the average China expat's nominal cash salary average is about USD 80,000 a year after tax, which works out to a little over RMB 40,000 per month.

And though the total package puts China as the 3rd highest pay and benefits package in the Asia-Pacific region (behind Japan and Australia), let's not forget that a good chunk of that goes to the tax man. If we discount the chunk taken out as tax, China's expats take home less in salary and benefits than those in Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea as well.

Of course, things are not good all over for expats in China. "'Expats' benefits in tier-two cities are still much lower than in tier-one cities. If those tier-two cities were to be taken into account alone, the Chinese mainland would appear towards the bottom of the regional ranking, above only Malaysia and Pakistan," Lee Quane, Asia director of ECA was quoted as saying.

Apparently expatriate middle managers in Japan are making USD 375,000 per year as a total package, just in case your USD 276,000 here in Beijing isn't enough.

ECA polled 320 companies across 167 countries, covering about 10,000 expat packages. ECA markets itself as is "the world’s leader in the development and provision of solutions for the management and assignment of employees around the world."

Do you know any middle manager who's making that kind of bread, especially at a time when expatriate middle managers are probably the most likely position to be localized? Let us know in the comments.

Photo: ECA