News / Bonuses tumble for Taiwan liner employees after profit plunge

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.

In contrast, Evergreen’s affiliated airline, EVA Air, announced last month it would award bonuses amounting to six months of salaries, after air travel and tourism recovered from the Covid pandemic. These bonus would be the highest since the airline was established in 1989.

In 9M 2023, EVA Air’s revenue rose 48% year on year, to $4.5bn, while net profit more than doubled, to $546.9m.

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.

In his new year message, K Line president and CEO Yukikazu Myochin alluded to the normalisation of container shipping after Covid-19, and how consumer spending had been affected by economic pressures.

He said: “The global economy has increased the degree of uncertainty surrounding the business environment such as rising inflationary pressures, the tightening of monetary policy in countries around the world, and the impact on the Chinese economy of the real estate downturn. A careful response and attentiveness are required in business operations.”