[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) announced on the 27th that the 'Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Welfare Platform,' which has gained great popularity among SME workers, will celebrate its first anniversary by enhancing welfare services and conducting various events.
The SME Welfare Platform is a platform jointly launched last September by the KCCI and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups to maximize welfare benefits. The KCCI stated that to maximize the benefits of the welfare platform, it will provide comprehensive welfare services including ▲introduction of a welfare points system ▲provision of company-specific exclusive welfare malls ▲support for joint labor welfare funds.
First, a payment system allowing companies to provide welfare points to workers for using products and services on the welfare platform is scheduled to be established by November. Workers using welfare points will have the advantage of freely choosing the welfare products they want.
Additionally, similar to welfare malls for employees of large corporations, company-specific exclusive welfare malls tailored to the welfare products desired by individual SMEs will be built to foster employees' loyalty and pride. The jointly provided labor welfare fund is a system where SMEs with insufficient welfare budgets jointly contribute to an in-house labor welfare fund, and the government supports the welfare fund with a 1:1 matching grant, enabling SMEs to spend twice the welfare budget for their workers. Furthermore, a regional product section selling excellent local company products and regional specialties at affordable prices will open in November, contributing to regional economic revitalization.
Over the past year, the SME Welfare Platform has been evaluated as a leading brand in the domestic corporate welfare sector, with over 128,000 registered members, mainly workers from micro and small SMEs who found it burdensome to join existing private welfare malls. In particular, it supports SME workers by including large corporations’ employee product malls, offering benefits such as leisure, travel, and health management, which are difficult to provide at the individual company level.
Jeong Ki-hwan, Director of the Job Policy Division at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “We will develop the SME Welfare Platform as the flagship of corporate welfare,” and added, “We will prepare various policies to narrow the welfare gap between large and small-medium enterprises, which currently stands at 67%, similar to the wage gap.”
Meanwhile, to commemorate the first anniversary of the SME Welfare Platform’s opening and surpassing 100,000 members, the KCCI will hold various events from October 26 to November 6, including a 50% discount on popular products (limited quantities) and a raffle event titled ‘Change Our Company’s OO (refrigerator, massage chair, air purifier, etc.)’. All welfare platform members can participate.
The SME Welfare Platform allows domestic SME workers to become members without any separate registration or usage fees. Registration is available on the SME Welfare Platform.
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