A company in South Korea is ready to spend millions of dollars to help improve the country’s low birth rate.
A construction company established in Seoul known as Booyoung Group plans to pay any of its workers 100 million Korean won ($75,000) each time they deliver a baby, it said in a press release Monday. Moreover, It will pay a total of 7 billion Korean won ($5.25 million) in cash to employees who have had 70 babies since 2021, it was added.
The benefit is available to men and women, a company spokesperson told CNN.
According to official forecasts from Statistics Korea, at 0.78 in 2022, South Korea has the world’s lowest fertility rate indicating the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime and that ratio is expected to drop further to 0.65 in 2025.
The data underscores the demographic time bomb that South Korea and other East Asian nations are facing as their societies rapidly age just a few decades after their dramatic industrialization.
Many European nations also face ageing populations, but the speed and impact of that change are mitigated by immigration. Countries like South Korea, Japan and China, however, have shied away from mass immigration to tackle the decline in their working-age populations.
Booyoung Group’s Chairman Lee Joong-keun said the company is offering “direct financial support” to its employees to help ease the monetary burden of raising children.
Employees with three babies will be given an option to choose between receiving 300 million Korean won ($225,000) in cash or rental housing if the government provides land for construction, he added at a company event on Monday.
“I hope we would get recognized as a company that contributes to encouraging births… and worries about the country’s future,” the company spokesperson told his employees.
The South Korean government and other private companies already offer financial perks to encourage people to have more children, but none on the scale of Booyoung Group’s benefits. Similar programs also exist in China, which has seen its population decline for two straight years.
Last year, the Hong Kong government announced a one-off cash allowance of HK$20,000 (US$ 2,557) as a financial incentive to eligible parents for each baby born on or after the 25th of October to tackle its low birth rate challenge.
Likewise in China, Trip.com, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, said workers who have been with the company for at least three years will receive an annual bonus of 10,000 yuan ($1,376) for each new-born child every year from the child’s first birthday until they reach the age of five.
韓國一家公司將為員工每生一個孩子提供7.5萬美元
韓國的一家公司準備花費數百萬美元來幫助改善該國的低出生率。
一家位於首爾的建築公司 Booyoung Group 在周一的新聞稿中表示，該公司計劃向其工人每次分娩時支付 1 億韓元（75,000 美元）。 此外，它還補充說，它將向自 2021 年以來生育了 70 個孩子的員工支付總計 70 億韓元（525 萬美元）的現金。
公司發言人告訴美國有線電視新聞網，這項福利對男性和女性都適用。
根據韓國統計局的官方預測，到 2022 年，韓國的生育率是世界上最低的，即女性一生中平均生育的孩子數量，預計到 2025 年，這一比率將進一步下降至 0.65。韓國統計局的預測。
這些數據突顯了韓國和其他東亞國家面臨的人口定時炸彈，因為它們的社會在工業化僅幾十年後就迅速老化。
許多歐洲國家也面臨人口老化問題，但移民減緩了這項變化的速度和影響。 然而，韓國、日本和中國等國家已經避免大規模移民，以應對勞動年齡人口下降的問題。
富榮集團董事長李仲根表示，公司正在向員工提供“直接財務支持”，以幫助減輕撫養孩子的經濟負擔。
他在周一的公司活動中補充道，如果政府提供建設用地，育有三個孩子的員工將可以選擇接受 3 億韓元（合 225,000 美元）的現金或租賃住房。
「我希望我們能被認為是一家為鼓勵生育做出貢獻的公司……並為國家的未來擔憂，」李告訴他的員工。
韓國政府和其他私人公司已經提供經濟福利，鼓勵人們生育更多孩子，但沒有一個能達到布永集團福利的規模。 中國也有類似的計劃，該國人口已連續兩年下降。
去年，香港政府宣布向符合資格的夫婦發放 2 萬港元。
去年，香港政府宣佈為 2023 年 10 月 25 日或之後出生的每個嬰兒提供 20,000 港元（2,557 美元）的一次性現金津貼，作為對符合資格的父母的經濟獎勵。
同樣，全球最大的線上旅行社之一中國攜程網表示，在該公司工作至少三年的員工每年將獲得每名新生兒 1 萬元人民幣（1,376 美元）的年度獎金。孩子的第一個生日直到他們五歲。
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