SQL Exercise: List managers on lower salaries than their employees

Last update on January 20 2026 12:30:27 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

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46. From the following table, write a SQL query to find those managers who receive less salary then the employees work under them. Return complete information about the employees.

Sample table: employees

+-------------+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------------+------------+------------+----------+----------------+------------+---------------+
| EMPLOYEE_ID | FIRST_NAME  | LAST_NAME   | EMAIL    | PHONE_NUMBER       | HIRE_DATE  | JOB_ID     | SALARY   | COMMISSION_PCT | MANAGER_ID | DEPARTMENT_ID |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------------+------------+------------+----------+----------------+------------+---------------+
|         100 | Steven      | King        | SKING    | 515.123.4567       | 2003-06-17 | AD_PRES    | 24000.00 |           0.00 |          0 |            90 |
|         101 | Neena       | Kochhar     | NKOCHHAR | 515.123.4568       | 2005-09-21 | AD_VP      | 17000.00 |           0.00 |        100 |            90 |
|         102 | Lex         | De Haan     | LDEHAAN  | 515.123.4569       | 2001-01-13 | AD_VP      | 17000.00 |           0.00 |        100 |            90 |
|         103 | Alexander   | Hunold      | AHUNOLD  | 590.423.4567       | 2006-01-03 | IT_PROG    |  9000.00 |           0.00 |        102 |            60 |
|         104 | Bruce       | Ernst       | BERNST   | 590.423.4568       | 2007-05-21 | IT_PROG    |  6000.00 |           0.00 |        103 |            60 |
|         105 | David       | Austin      | DAUSTIN  | 590.423.4569       | 2005-06-25 | IT_PROG    |  4800.00 |           0.00 |        103 |            60 |
|         106 | Valli       | Pataballa   | VPATABAL | 590.423.4560       | 2006-02-05 | IT_PROG    |  4800.00 |           0.00 |        103 |            60 |
|         107 | Diana       | Lorentz     | DLORENTZ | 590.423.5567       | 2007-02-07 | IT_PROG    |  4200.00 |           0.00 |        103 |            60 |
|         108 | Nancy       | Greenberg   | NGREENBE | 515.124.4569       | 2002-08-17 | FI_MGR     | 12008.00 |           0.00 |        101 |           100 |
|         109 | Daniel      | Faviet      | DFAVIET  | 515.124.4169       | 2002-08-16 | FI_ACCOUNT |  9000.00 |           0.00 |        108 |           100 |
.........
|         206 | William     | Gietz       | WGIETZ   | 515.123.8181       | 2002-06-07 | AC_ACCOUNT |  8300.00 |           0.00 |        205 |           110 |
+-------------+-------------+-------------+----------+--------------------+------------+------------+----------+----------------+------------+---------------+

View the table

Sample Solution:

SELECT *
FROM employees w
WHERE salary < ANY
    (SELECT salary
     FROM employees
     WHERE w.emp_id=manager_id);

SELECT DISTINCT m.emp_name,
                m.salary
FROM employees w,
     employees m
WHERE w.manager_id = m.emp_id
  AND w.salary>m.salary;

SELECT *
FROM employees w
WHERE emp_id IN
    (SELECT manager_id
     FROM employees
     WHERE w.salary<salary);

Sample Output:

 emp_id | emp_name | job_name | manager_id | hire_date  | salary  | commission | dep_id
--------+----------+----------+------------+------------+---------+------------+--------
  65646 | JONAS    | MANAGER  |      68319 | 1991-04-02 | 2957.00 |            |   2001
(1 row)

Explanation:

The said query in SQL that retrieves all employees from the employees table who have a salary lower than at least one of their managers.

The WHERE clause compares the salary of each employee with the salaries of their managers obtained from a subquery. The subquery that retrieves the salaries of all employees who have a manager with an emp_id equal to the manager_id of the employee.

The ANY operator in the subquery compares the salary of the employee with each of the salaries in the subquery.

Relational Algebra Expression: