Big bonuses handed out in bundles for Chinese workers
Cash in hand Image: Andy Nitchman |
Blue chip CEOs, accompanied by scores of pay consultants and lawyers, spend months working out stock options, dividends and pay ratios, before deciding on an appropriate level of compensation.
For China’s realtors and tea farmers, however, a bundle of cash does the job just as well.
At an end-of-year party in the village of Jinan, Shandong province, local workers queued up to receive their share of the 1m yuan ($165,300) year-end bonus. The cash was neatly taped into 10,000 yuan bundles, then stacked into a pyramid formation and handed out by the firm’s managers.
The average bonus worked out at around 40,000 yuan, while the top employee carted off a hefty 200,000 yuan lump sum. Honest pay for an honest day’s work.
However, this was insignificant in comparison to the cash-and-prizes extravaganza at Henan Zhechang Real Estate’s “2013 Year-end Share-in Success Party”, where executives handed out 11m yuan in bonuses to employees.
Realtor staff had to carry burlap sacks to the event in order to accommodate their payout, which also included 30 iPhone 5S mobile phones; five 42” LCD Tvs; two notebook computers; three air conditioners; electric mopeds; iPad minis; cameras and more.
To protect the goodies, managers hired an armour-plated car and armed guards to escort them to the event.
For some, the spectacle left a bad taste. House prices in China’s major cities are prohibitively expensive for most as developers restrict supply and drive up prices. There are fears of a Tokyo-style bubble as price-per-square metre for medium-grade commercial housing in Beijing reached 16,957 yuan ($2,800) in October last year.
For the employees of Henan Zhechang Real Estate, it seems, much of the New Year may be spent deleting angry posts off their brand new iPhones.