International Business Machines Corp (IBM) said on Wednesday that it was introducing a US$50 million five-year initiative aimed at improving its workers' financial education and planning.
Employees, as well as their spouses or domestic partners, will be offered a series of live and Web-based investment seminars starting this month.
Starting next month, employees will be able to get unlimited one-on-one personal financial planning and counseling by telephone through Fidelity Investments and the Ayco Co LP, a division of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Financial planners from Fidelity and Ayco are trained in all of IBM's benefits programs and will receive no additional pay or commissions for selling their companies' products, the blue-chip giant said.
"No other company that I'm aware of has ever done anything this comprehensive for its employees," said Randy MacDonald, IBM's senior vice president for human resources.
The move comes at a time when IBM and other companies are shifting retirement planning responsibility from the company to the employee.
Traditional pensions, which promised employee a guaranteed retirement income, are being replaced with "defined contribution" plans, in which employees put aside money for retirement, often with a partial match by employers.
IBM, for instance, closed its traditional pension to new hires in 2005 and said last year that employees hired earlier will have their benefits frozen after this year.
To compensate, the computer maker doubled the matching contribution for recent hires in its company-sponsored retirement plan, and will do the same for all workers starting next year, paying dollar for dollar matches up to 6 percent of the salary a worker defers into the account.
IBM also added an unusual lump sum contribution of up to 4 percent of salary regardless of whether an employee defers any pay into the company-sponsored retirement plan.
That means the company's share of a worker's retirement savings could reach 10 percent of salary -- more than three times the rate of many such plans.
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a