WORLD> Asia-Pacific
S Korean banks to join government-led salary cut program
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-16 17:38

SEOUL -- South Korean banks plan to carry out a unified 20 percent salary cut for the newly employed, South Korea's Korea Herald reported Monday.

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The Korea Federation of Banks (KFB) said that they will present a set of crisis-cracking proposals to the Korea Financial Industry Union (KFIU) during their annual wage negotiation to be held this week.

"We plan to propose a cut in entry-level salaries, joining the so-called job-sharing campaign of the government," a bank official said.

While an increasing number of South Korean companies opt to join the government-led salary cut project in an effort not to lay off their workers and to hire more new staffs amid the worldwide recession, it will be the first industry-wide salary cut if the bank union agrees with the KFB.

Meanwhile, an official at the KFIU said that they have no plan to adopt the proposal, saying they could go for as far as a wage freeze.