What are you earning compared to the president and others?

The end of one year and the start of another is often an opportune time for South Africans to reflect on their current earnings and ambition to be paid more.

December and January can bring periods of reflection, both personally and professionally, motivating citizens of Mzansi to evaluate their bank balance and monthly bottom line.

Blue-and-white-collar workers across the country could be intrigued to know the numbers earned by top professions in Gauteng, the Western Cape, and other provinces when comparing their yield for the year.

Pay doesn’t always seem commensurate to the job, exemplified by a recent report that detailed the superior earnings of South African Broadcasting Corporation executives to the inferior salary of national president Cyril Ramaphosa.

The near R4 million per annum earned by those SABC execs is significantly higher than the approximate R3 million each year collected by Ramaphosa. But these numbers pale in comparison to the rand value racked up in USA Powerball results across any given year.

Whopping six-and-seven-figure winnings are the norm in the US Powerball, especially amid the hefty exchange rate synonymous with the rand versus the US dollar.

KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, and residents of other parts of South Africa might be interested to know about annual salaries that are more attainable, though. This is not to say we can’t eventually achieve the lofty earnings of SABC and governmental employees, but there are certainly more achievable incomes.

A November 2020 report from Skills Portal SA revealed pilots, software engineers, lawyers, medical specialists, and IT managers among the top earners every year in South Africa.

The approximate R700,000 per year earned by pilots is effectively only slightly less than what a person could win in the US Powerball if having guessed four numbers and the actual Powerball correctly.

Of course, becoming a pilot takes thousands of hours of training and the completion of several licenses and certificates. Attempting to win the Powerball takes no more than a few minutes.

“There is no such thing as a natural-born pilot. Whatever my aptitudes or talents, becoming a proficient pilot was hard work, really a lifetime’s learning experience. For the best pilots, flying is an obsession, the one thing in life they must do continually. The best pilots fly more than the others; that’s why they’re the best. Experience is everything,” said Chuck Yeager, who was the very first pilot to break the sound barrier.

The sentiment about experience is valid in the medical field, too, where specialists such as doctors, surgeons, and related professions earn well for their years and decades of insight. Specialists are more studied than general practitioners, so largely earn more than the estimated R650,000 per year noted by Skills Portal SA.

As for IT managers and lawyers, they are more or less in the same bracket as well. Their approximate R700,000 per year, though, is almost half what software engineers bring in every month. Now if about R1.3 million per annum isn’t enough to persuade you to get into computers –more specially software engineering– then that’s on you.