Hypermarket staffers can expect at least one month's salary as a year-end bonus, while department stores employees could be awarded a year-end bonus of over two month's salary because of strong sales in the retail sector this year.
"It is expected that staff will receive two-month's salary as a year-end bonus, as they did last year," said Sarah Wu (
Tesco, the UK-based retailer, has four outlets in Taiwan and takes about 4 percent of the NT$100 billion hypermarket retail market here.
But given that the company has not broken even after it entered the local market in 2000, the basic standard of the year-end bonus will be the same as last year. Additional bonuses may be awarded on the basis of each branches' performance, Wu added.
Tesco expects to create a more than 10 percent increase in annual sales over the NT$4 billion it had last year.
Carrefour Corp Taiwan, Tai-wan's largest hypermarket chain with 31 stores nationwide, is expected to offer at least one-month's salary as year-end bonus, said Allan Tien (田中玉), spokesman of Carrefour Taiwan.
"Employees may be awarded an extra bonus depending on the branches' achievements and the employee's merits," he said.
Carrefour predicts more than NT$50 billion in sales this year, up 2 percent from a year ago.
The department stores sector, hurt by the outbreak of SARS earlier this year and the public's deflation concerns, regained its vigor during the second half of the year and is expected to pay an average two month year-end bonus.
Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Stores (新光三越), Taiwan's largest department store chain with 10 outlets nationwide, said it will offer at least a two-month salary as year-end bonus this year, said Shauna Lee (李香萩), Mitsukoshi's sale promotion assistant manager.
"The company may also provide extra bonuses according to the branches' performance," Lee said.
After a surge in economic growth in the third quarter, retailers were banking on a series of promotions and anniversary sales beginning October to boost their sales. Mitsukoshi expects annual sales of NT$45 billion this year, an increase of 10 percent from a year earlier, Lee said.
"The ongoing anniversary sale at our outlet in front of Taipei Main Station has achieved 50 percent of the NT$12.9 billion-target in the first seven days," Lee said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day