As the economy recovers from the financial crisis, more than 80 percent of companies plan to pay out bonuses this year, up 17.5 percentage points from 63.93 percent last year, a survey by the 1111 Job Bank showed.
Topping the list are real estate companies, which plan to distribute an average bonus equivalent to 1.93 months in wages, it said.
The survey, which polled 544 enterprises between Jan. 7 and Jan. 20, said that nearly 37 percent planned to increase their bonus payments by an average of 28 percent from last year.
“Both the number of companies planning to give out year-end bonuses and the amount of bonuses have increased this year because employers are upbeat about the economy in the coming year,” job bank public relations director Henry Ho (何啟聖) told a press conference yesterday.
Taiwanese companies typically distribute bonuses before the end of the lunar year.
One key reason cited by companies for giving out bonuses was to reward employees who “stayed on board” during the economic downturn, Ho said.
“This year’s bonus distribution has more symbolic, rather than material, significance,” Ho said.
Average bonuses for this year increased to 1.73 months’ salary, up from 1.47 months last year, pointing to a likely upturn in the economy, the survey said.
“Overall, sales in the real estate market increased about 30 percent last year compared with the previous year. The top sales agents this year will receive almost NT$10 million in bonuses,” Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨), spokeswoman for HB Housing, told reporters.
The survey showed that nearly 31 percent of companies would still pay out bonuses even if they did not make profits last year, up 6.83 percentage points from the previous year.
Ho said a recent announcement by a number of listed companies that they would grant year-end bonuses might have encouraged other companies to follow suit.
Topping the list of companies planning to grant year-end bonuses are the pharmaceutical and farming industries, followed by trade and distribution industries and manufacturing sectors, the survey showed.
“No pain, no gain. More than 50 percent of companies will give out bonuses based on employee performance,” the survey said.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
RSS