Container shipper Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) is to raise year-end bonuses for its employees to 12 months of wages on average and is to raise salaries by about 4 percent, after a bumper year that saw a significant rise in shipping rates and profit, the firm said.
Yang Ming’s board of directors on Friday approved the bonus and pay raise plans, two weeks after larger rival Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) reportedly paid bonuses of as much as 40 months of salary to its employees.
Shippers’ profits last year received a boost from surging freight rates amid strong global demand and port congestion due in part to COVID-19 curbs.
Photo courtesy of Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp via EPA-EFE
Evergreen reported NT$158.28 billion (US$5.73 billion) in net profit in the first nine months of last year, up 1,347.32 percent from a year earlier, or earnings per share of NT$30.27.
Yang Ming reported NT$109.8 billion in net profit in the same period, up 5,839 percent from a year earlier, or earnings per share of NT$32.73.
For the whole of last year, Evergreen registered NT$489.40 billion in revenue, up 136.1 percent from a year earlier, while Yang Ming posted NT$334.48 billion in revenue, up 120.22 percent.
In addition to performance-based year-end bonuses, Yang Ming annually issues fixed year-end bonuses of one month of the respective employee’s salary.
This year, its employees would receive 13 months of wages as year-end bonuses ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which is to start on Saturday next week.
Local media reported that Yang Ming might issue extra bonuses for the Dragon Boat and Mid-Autumn festivals, with bonuses this year totaling up to 30 months of salary.
To meet robust global demand for container cargo shipping services, Yang Ming is building five new mega vessels, each with a capacity to carry 15,000 20-foot equivalent units of cargo.
The company said it spent NT$10 billion in capital expenditure last year.
As it is adding new ships, Yang Ming’s spending for this year could double, the shipper said.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure