If Santa was a regular paid employee, his salary would be about $140,000

We’re not exactly sure how Santa Claus makes a living or how he pays for his groceries – maybe he’s living off endorsement deals and residuals from all those Christmas movies? – but, according to the folks at Insure.com, he should be getting paid $139,924 for all his hard work.

That’s more than $2,000 more than what he was due last year, a raise of about 1.5 per cent.

Insure.com broke down his earnings using Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data.

The majority of Santa’s pay should come from managing the toy factory in the North Pole as an industrial engineer. At eight hours a day for 364 days a year – poor Santa works weekends, we learned – he should be paid $116,742.

His other billable duties include professional shopper, gift-wrapper, labour negotiator, letter-reader, talking to kids in the mall, investigator (he knows if you’ve been bad or good), list-checker, reindeer-carer, snow-plough driver, sleigh pilot, chimney sweep, cookie taster and gift distributer.

One job that Santa apparently does for free: announces “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

• Running the workshop 2912 hours per year: $116,742

• Professional shopper 120 hours per year: $1,980

• Wrapper of gifts 168 hours per year: $1,831

• Labor negotiator (with the elves) 182.5 hours per year: $4,964

• Letter reader 100 hours per year: $1,722

• Talking to kids in the mall 168 hours per year: $2,695

• Investigator (knows if you’ve been good or bad) 30 hours per year: $777

• List checker (checking it twice) 30 hours per year: $537

• Taking care of reindeer 365 hours per year: $4,347

• Snow plow driver 180 hours per year: $3,200

• Sleigh pilot 10 hours per year: $623

• Chimney sweep 10 hours per year: $146

• Cookie taster 10 hours per year: $210

• Gift distributor 10 hours per year: $149

• Announcer (“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”) .01 hours per year: $0

Not included on the list: his milk-and-cookies tips. They have to be worth something, right?

According to the Santa Index, Santa works an average of 11.74 hours a day – every single day of the year – for just over $32.60 an hour.

What do you think? Is Santa overworked? Overpaid?

(Can’t someone give Kris Kringle a day or two off in 2015?)