'CEO Jackpot Day' marks the date on which a CEO of the 20 main companies listed on the Brussels Stock Exchange (Bel20) will have earned the equivalent of the median annual salary of "regular" Belgian workers. This year it falls on Wednesday 8 January.
The median annual salary of Belgian workers is €3,739.07 gross per month. Bel20 CEOs earn the median annual salary of Belgian workers in 4.8 working days, according to the latest available data (2023). Their median annual salary is €2.8 million.
Taking into account the 2025 calendar, this symbolic moment will take place in the afternoon of 8 January. According to the calculations of the Christian trade union (CNE), this means that a CEO of a Bel20 company earns 54 times the median salary.
A different ball game
"The gap is even more glaring with the minimum wage. In 2023, the minimum wage (guaranteed average monthly minimum income) is €1,954.99 per month. A Bel20 CEO earns nearly 120 times the minimum wage. He earned as much as a minimum wage worker after only 2.2 days of work."
The CNE also looked at the evolution of salaries: between 2014 and 2023 the median compensation of BEL20 CEOs increased by 74.6% while the median salary increased by only 25.6%, and the minimum wage by 30.2% (including inflation).
"This shows clearly that not all salaries are treated the same. While most workers' salary increases are blocked by the wage freeze law (Competitiveness Act of 1996), Bel20 CEO salaries have skyrocketed in recent years," the CNE said.
Credit: European Parliament
The union stressed that the plans on the table of the 'Arizona' negotiators trying to form the next Federal Government will "attack workers' gross salaries" and "increase the gap between CEOs and employees even further."
Formator Bart De Wever's (N-VA) socio-economic proposals include delaying and limiting the indexation of wages and allowing certain companies or sectors not to apply the wage increases provided for in interprofessional or sectoral agreements. "This could allow certain companies to circumvent sectoral or interprofessional minima to apply lower wages, which would create a downward levelling of workers' rights."
"To reduce inequalities and increase the share of wealth that goes to employees, we want to eliminate the wage freeze law to obtain gross wage increases and we want to maintain and extend wage indexation," the union said.
