COMP NEWS – Two Taiwanese liner operators, who made news last year for giving workers astronomically large bonuses worth several years’ salaries, are reducing this year’s bonuses after less-than-astronomical profits.

With substantially reduced profits a foregone conclusion, the employees of Taiwan’s two biggest liner operators, Evergreen and Yang Ming, will reportedly receive much smaller bonuses for 2023.

 

Evergreen, which paid as much as 45 months of salary for 2022, is offering five to six months’ for last year, at best; while Yang Ming paid as much as 33 months’ for 2022, is said to be paying just two months’ at most.

 

In the first nine months of 2023, Evergreen’s revenue fell 60% on the same period of 2022, to $6.4bn, while net profit shrank 89%, to $1.1bn.

 

Yang Ming’s 9M 23 revenue fell 66% year on year, to $3.3bn, while net profit plunged 96%, to $196.2m.

Employees had reportedly expected a reduction in their annual bonuses. Still, this year’s bonuses will tally up to between two and six months’ worth of pay – a sizable payout.

Employees of the Taiwanese liner operators had told local media about the expected reduction in year-end bonuses. However, Evergreen, Yang Ming and Wan Hai Lines have a policy of not commenting on remuneration.

 

Mr Yang Zongbin, a spokesperson for local job search site yes123, was quoted by Taiwanese TV network TVBS as saying reduced bonuses in the shipping industry were inevitable. He said: “If you look at the transportation industry, the situation of shipping this year isn’t as good as that of the airline industry, as the latter benefited from the so-called ‘revenge travel’.”

 

And Japanese companies, not known to be generous paymasters, are also expected to adopt a conservative remuneration plan.

To read more about Evergreen and Yang Ming’s annual bonuses in 2024, click here.

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