About 78 percent of Taiwanese companies are planning to pay their employees year-end bonuses, although the average amount has shrunk to 1.23 months’ salary, according to the results of a survey released yesterday.
The employment Web site 1111 Job Bank said that 77.9 percent of its 678 corporate users that took part in the survey between Dec. 9 last year and Jan. 16 said they would hand out bonuses to their employees.
When the Web site conducted the same survey a year ago, 86.53 percent of the 540 companies that took part in it said they would hand out bonuses, the highest level since 2006.
This year’s percentage is the lowest in seven years, while the average bonus, equal to 1.23 months’ salary, is a drop from 1.34 months’ salary a year ago, the Web site said.
The economy, which weakened drastically during the second half of last year, affected local companies’ operations and their willingness to reward their employees, 1111 Job Bank vice president Daniel Lee (李大華) said.
The Web site said that 43.7 percent of the companies that participated in the survey said they posted annual revenue or profit declines of at least 10 percent last year, when Taiwan’s economic growth was 0.85 percent, the lowest in six years.
Survey results showed that 69.82 percent of the companies did not think that giving smaller bonuses would cause employees to quit, showing that they are aware of the increasing difficulty in finding a job when the economy is weak, Lee said.
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