The Taiwan Stock Exchange announced yesterday the 2025 statistics on the “salaries of full-time employees not holding managerial positions” of listed companies. The top ten highest-paid companies were all from the semiconductor industry. MediaTek, the leading IC design company, won the “salary king” title for the fifth consecutive year with NT$4.465 million (approximately US$140,000). ASMedia surged by nearly 39% to become the runner-up with NT$4.281 million, overtaking TSMC, which ranked third with NT $ 4.072 million.
According to the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s ranking of “Average Salaries of Non-Managerial Full-Time Employees,” the top five are, in order: MediaTek (NT$4.465 million), ASMedia (NT$4.281 million), TSMC (NT$4.072 million), Realtek (NT$3.871 million), and Dafa Technology (NT$3.533 million). Among them, ASMedia saw the largest annual salary increase, rising by 38.81%. TSMC also experienced a significant increase of 20.08% compared to the previous year, with its average salary exceeding NT$4 million for the first time.
The sixth to tenth places are NT$3.28 million for Hung Ching, NT$3.246 million for Novatek, NT$3.18 million for Creative, NT$2.896 million for Raydium, and NT$2.805 million for Tien Yu. Except for a few companies whose salaries were slightly adjusted due to market conditions, the average annual salary threshold for entry-level employees in the top ten companies has jumped from NT$2.8 million, highlighting the industry’s high-premium salary structure.
To better reflect the “realistic salary experience” of ordinary employees, the Taiwan Stock Exchange also released a ranking of “median salaries.” After excluding the extreme values of a few high-paid top employees, MediaTek still firmly holds the top spot with NT$3.552 million.
TSMC, which ranks third in average, has a median of 3.162 million, but was overtaken by Realtek’s 3.193 million, dropping to fourth place. This reflects the fact that TSMC has a large workforce of 74,000 employees and a very high weighting in its compensation structure for bonuses and performance-based pay, resulting in a nearly 910,000 gap between its average and median. Furthermore, driver IC giant Unimicron ranked tenth with a median of 2.297 million, while Raydium fell out of the top ten in median pay.
Looking at the total amount of employee salaries paid, the results are quite different. TSMC’s total salaries paid to non-management employees last year reached a staggering NT$305.36 billion, ranking first among listed companies and even surpassing the combined annual output of many medium-sized and large industries. The second and third highest salaries were paid by ASE Technology Holding Co., Ltd. (NT$57.16 billion) and MediaTek Co., Ltd. (NT$52.78 billion), respectively. Among the top ten in total salaries, in addition to the semiconductor and electronic components industries, traditional “salary-paying giants” such as Cathay Financial Holdings and Fubon Financial Holdings also made the list, while Chunghwa Telecom and China Airlines also ranked in the top ten.
In addition, the Taipei Exchange yesterday released the 2025 salary figures for full-time employees who do not hold managerial positions. Among the top ten companies with the highest average salaries, seven are in the semiconductor industry. Hsin Hua, the stock market king, not only has the highest stock price, but its employees’ salaries also topped the list again with NT$5.617 million.
