TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwanese netizens have reacted rather cynically to predictions by a think tank director that the country’s GDP per capita is set to surpass South Korea’s next year, with people expressing doubt that Taiwanese workers will see any real increase in their salaries.

Taiwan’s GDP per capita surpassed US$30,000 (NT$835,200) this year, prompting Chang Chien-Yi (張建一), director of the Taiwan Insitute of Economic Research (TIER), to optimistically predict that the country would surpass South Korea in this metric in 2022. Taiwanese netizens responded on the blogging platform PTT by lamenting that even this achievement will not change the state of Taiwan’s suppressed wages, according to a report by ETToday Finance.

“Even if we beat South Korea in GDP, our salary is still less than one-third of theirs, we are so very sad,” one user wrote.

According to a report by the International Monetary Fund in October, Taiwan is indeed closing the gap with South Korea. It is predicted that the GDP per capita of both countries will exceed US$40,000 in 2024 and that by 2025, Taiwan’s will be US$42,802, while South Korea’s will be US$42,719.

Yet this prediction does not convince many Taiwanese netizens that much of the new growth will land in their pockets. Other comments included the following:

“There is a massive gap in the minimum hourly wage, not to mention Korean employees at Taiwanese companies get paid at least double what Taiwanese do.”

“GDP per capita is all well and good, but when can we expect a higher salary than South Koreans? Most Taiwanese are still underpaid.”

“Korea University graduates’ starting salary is triple Taiwanese grads. Like hell that will change by 2025!”

“What is the use of this? The semiconductor industry is making all the money, while other industries are dying!"

“GDP per capita has nothing to do with worker’s salary, so what is there to crow about?”

“Taiwanese grads earn a third of Koreans. What are we doing inflating our egos over this for?”