Trip.com offers bonus for employees to have kids
Shanghai-based Trip.com, one of the world's largest online travel operators, announced on Friday that it will offer 50,000 yuan (US$6,885) as parental subsidy to employees for each child they have starting Saturday.
Based on its estimation, the total subsidy would amount to 1 billion yuan, benefiting more than 20,000 employees.
The new policy targets people who have been working in Trip.com for at least three years, no matter their gender or where in the world they are employed. The subsidy will be delivered over five years at a pace of 10,000 yuan each year.
"It comes as a big delightful surprise," said Hu Jun, an employee of Trip.com's air ticket service department.
His wife is due to give birth in early July, putting Hu among the first batch of beneficiaries.
"It is a big 'red envelope'," said Hu who has been working in Trip.com for five years.
Since late 2015, the company has been giving transportation and medical subsidies to employees and maternity benefits that amounted to nearly 8 million yuan per year.
Last year, the percentage of employees with new births in the company surged 147 percent from 2015, with those with a second child surging 329 percent.
"We suggest a subsidy from the government to lower the fertility costs of families and stimulate the willingness to have more children," said its chairman James Liang, also a population economics expert.
"Enterprises can play a role to create a sound fertility environment in society," he said.
Shanghai's latest total fertility rate – the average number of children that a woman delivers in her lifetime – among people with registered residency or hukou, only stood at 0.7 last year, far below the standard level of 2.1 to maintain a stable population.
China's total fertility rate fell to 1.07 last year from 1.52 in 2019, recording a fall for the sixth consecutive year.
A report by YuWa Population Research estimated that the average cost of raising a child in China until the age of 18 stands at 485,000 yuan.
