Jealousy is bad. Jealousy is bad. Jealousy is bad.
Important things should be repeated three times (or so goes the popular Chinese memes now).
But does repetition stop us from feeling a certain way? We’re not as sure.
A Taiwanese shipping company recently released news that it would be awarding its employees with fat bonuses for their hard work.
We turned green-eyed with envy upon hearing that news.
Here is what the huge bonus payout is about so that you can be jealous too.
Yang Ming Pays up to 30 Months of Bonus to Eligible Employees
Have you heard of the Taiwanese shipping company Yang Ming Marine Transport? Well, you will be hearing about it now in relation to its generosity to its employees.
It recently announced this week that it would be paying some lucky workers up to 30 months of salary as a mid-year bonus.
This comes in the wake of the shipping giant’s approval to pay up to NT $2.3 billion (approximately SG $101 million) in bonuses, according to an Economic Daily News report.
According to Yang Ming’s interview with Bloomberg, the company rules dictate that the shipping firm “must distribute 1 per cent of its previous year’s profit to employees as compensation”.
Wow. Why don’t our companies have such rules in place?
Then again, the company and industry have to be booming for such huge bonuses to be paid out. There’s no guarantee that other companies or industries can achieve the same whopping numbers.
Shipping firms have generally done well over the COVID-19 period due to the demand for shipping consumer goods around the world while people were all stuck at home. This may have heavily contributed to the big bonuses that the employees are not enjoying (if they managed to stick it out through the COVID-19 period).
However, the huge bonuses may not be sustainable in the long run as there are predictions for Yang Ming’s profits to fall 99 per cent to NT $2.2 billion (approximately SG $96 million) this year.
Employees Previously Received up to 12 Months’ Bonus at the Start of the Year
Then again, if you are an employee who receives their benefits and dips, the outlook for the company, in the long run, may be less of a concern.
Indeed, employees of Yang Ming who intend to quit soon have it good. After all, this 30-month mid-year bonus comes as a second tranche of bonuses paid out this year.
The first tranche was a 12-month bonus paid out to employees at the start of the year as the year-end bonus for 2022.
That brings the total bonuses for Yang Ming employees to 42 months in total.
You can close your open jaw now.
Another Shipping Company Also Paid Huge Bonuses to Employees
If you are tempted to dismiss this Yang Ming generosity as an anomaly, you may be wrong.
Another shipping company, Evergreen Marine, has also made the news for paying ridiculously large bonuses that would make your jaw hit the floor.
For one, they previously announced a 10 to 52-month bonus for some employees as their year-end bonus last year. This 2022 payout made headlines as it topped the 40-month payout that the company announced in 2021.
And the cash didn’t stop there. The company continued to make it rain for employees in the middle of the year by announcing an additional 12-month mid-year bonus.
So essentially, employees of Evergreen stand to receive up to 64 months of salary in bonuses.
Amazing, is it not?
Bloomberg reports that this second tranche of bonuses will cost the company about NT $1.9 billion (approximately SG $836,000). The sum will be shared amongst the 3,100 employees in Evergreen Marine. Shareholders of Evergreen had previously approved the bonus at a meeting.
Right now, we are thinking that we’ve been slogging it out for the wrong companies. Is it too late to jump ship to a Taiwanese shipping company?
We are with you if you wish that Singapore companies are that generous.
While no Singapore company has appeared to pull such stunts to let their employees roll in dough, there are some local companies that are quite loose with their spending when it comes to employee welfare in other forms.
Or should we say generous?
For example, a Singapore company threw a lavish dinner-and-dance party for its employees in Kaohsiung (a city in Taiwan) to celebrate the end of 2022.
The wellness product company, Riway International, booked out 2,600 banquet tables and threw an extraordinary corporate dinner for its staff.
Big names such as pop singer Wakin Chau, Taiwanese rockers Power Station, and singer-songwriter Ricky Hsiao were amongst the entertainers for the night.
Staff members were also treated to a lavish 12-course dinner to go along with the performances.
The cost of the event was almost NT $100 million (approximately SG $4.35 million), according to a company spokesman who spoke to Taiwan’s Commercial Times.
That is a far cry from the total amount Evergreen and Yang Ming spent on their employees, though it is a very respectable amount. But we cannot help but think about how we would rather have that money put into our pockets instead of wining and dining it away.
Then again, something is better than nothing.
If you had the option of choosing between attending a lavish dinner party and receiving extravagant bonus payouts, which would you select?