A South Korean construction company has announced it will spend millions of dollars to encourage its employees to have more children, offering $75,000 for each employee who has a baby.
Seoul-based construction conglomerate Booyoung Group announced earlier this week that it plans to pay its employees 100 million won ($75,000) for each child they give birth to, and will pay a total of $5.2 million in cash to employees who have given birth to 70 babies since 2021.
Booyoung Chairman Lee Joo-keun said the policy applies to both male and female employees, aiming to help them ease the financial burden of raising children.
"We hope to be known as a company that cares about the future of the country and contributes to encouraging births," said Mr. Lee. Booyoung Group, founded in 1983, has built more than 270,000 houses to date.
Social workers care for newborns in Seoul, South Korea, in 2017. Photo: AFP
South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world . In the first 11 months of 2023, South Korea recorded 213,572 babies born, down 8.1% from the previous year and the lowest birth rate in decades.
This trend is getting worse as young Koreans are reluctant to have children due to economic uncertainty and rising housing costs. By 2100, the population is expected to decline by 53%, to 24 million.
The Korean government has introduced a number of support policies to encourage childbirth. Private companies have also taken similar steps, but none have been as generous in their support for their employees as Booyoung Group.
President Yoon Suk-yeol last year approved a policy to triple subsidies for new mothers. The country is also focusing on strategies to cope with an aging population, improve retirement living, promote the use of robots and recruit more foreign workers.
Duc Trung (According to CNN )
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