(image: Korea Bizwire)
SEJONG, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Corporate retirement pension funds under management expanded more than 16 percent in 2020 from a year earlier as the system has taken root here, government data showed Thursday.
Cumulative corporate retirement pension funds stood at 255 trillion won (US$214 billion) as of end-December last year, up 16.1 percent from a year ago, according to the data first compiled by Statistics Korea.
A total of 408,000 companies adopted the scheme for their employees as of last year, up 3.5 percent from the previous year.
About 6.65 million workers, or 52.4 percent of all 11.87 million employees, were covered by the corporate retirement pension program last year.
The scheme introduced in 2005 aims to help fund retirees’ severance payments. Companies and employees make contributions to the pension funds, and employees can receive the pension after their retirement.
South Korea has been encouraging companies to adopt the retirement annuity program as part of efforts to help reduce the financial burden of severance payments, as well as allow employees to receive stable pension payments and higher retirement payments.
(Yonhap)
