This file photo shows the buildings of South Korea’s major companies in Seoul. (Yonhap)
SEJONG, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Corporate retirement pension funds under management expanded 15.5 percent in 2021 from a year earlier, government data showed Monday.
Cumulative corporate retirement pension funds stood at 295 trillion won (US$226 billion) as of end-December last year, up 40 trillion won from a year ago, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.
A total of 425,000 companies adopted the scheme for their employees as of last year, up 4 percent from the previous year.
About 6.8 million workers, up 2.8 percent on-year, were covered by the corporate retirement pension program last year. They accounted for 53.3 percent of all eligible workers.
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)
