Final answer:
The mean salary for the five employees is $40,440, and the median salary is $42,600. The median can be a better measure than the mean when data includes outliers, as it is less affected by extreme values.
Step-by-step explanation:
The mean salary for the five employees is calculated by adding all the salaries together and dividing the sum by the number of employees. In our case, we want to add $49,700, $25,400, $41,500, $42,600, and $43,000 together and then divide by 5.
Mean salary = ($49,700 + $25,400 + $41,500 + $42,600 + $43,000) / 5 = $202,200 / 5 = $40,440.
To find the median salary, we need to arrange the salaries in ascending order - $25,400, $41,500, $42,600, $43,000, $49,700. The median is the middle number, which in this case is $42,600 because it is the third salary when arranged in order.
In the scenario where there are outliers, such as one person earning a significantly different amount than the others, the median can represent the center of the data more accurately.
For monetary data where there is a risk of outliers, the median can provide a better sense of the average salary than the mean, which can be skewed by extreme values.