Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品), which owns the Wang Steak (王品台塑牛排), Tasty (西堤) and Tokiya (陶板屋) brands, on Monday announced that it would give year-end bonuses to its employees equivalent to one-and-a-half months of salary as the local food and beverage industry recovers from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wowprime chairman Chen Cheng-hui (陳正輝) made the announcement in a late-night livestream event that the company organized for its 9,300 employees in Taiwan.
Wowprime’s year-end bonuses this year would be the highest since the company debuted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 2012, and would also surpass the local lodging and food and beverage industry’s average bonus of 0.85 months of salary.
Photo courtesy of Wowprime Corp
The company is expected to pay more than NT$200 million (US$6.51 million) in employee bonuses.
Wowprime also announced that it would spend NT$20 million on five year-end banquets for its employees, plus an incentive tour later this month.
“As long as the company stays profitable, we will share the benefits with all of our partners,” Chen said.
The company posted third-quarter earnings per share (EPS) of NT$3.77, improving from losses per share of NT$1.45 a year earlier.
In the first nine months of this year, the restaurant chain operator posted EPS of NT$2.41, compared with NT$2.43 in losses per share a year earlier.
Revenue last month grew 14.01 percent year-on-year to NT$1.22 billion, increasing for a fifth straight month.
However, sales from China plunged 32.95 percent from a year earlier to NT$320 million due to strict COVID-19 curbs there. As a result, Wowprime’s consolidated sales last month edged down 0.62 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.54 billion.
Consolidated sales in the first 11 months of the year rose 7.95 percent to NT$16.53 billion.
With China easing its COVID-19 restrictions, Wowprime said it believed its operations there would improve.
Last month, Wowprime said it would raise its starting monthly salary for employees to NT$33,000 from next year as part of a plan to increase pay by 3 percent to 7.5 percent for employees across the group’s chains.
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