An email sent by Tencent CEO Mr. Ma Huateng to all its staff showed that the largest Chinese Internet company is planning an across-the-board pay raise by approximately 10%, setting up a RMB 1billion (US$ 153.2million) worth of “Tencent Housing Fund” to provide interest-free mortgage to qualified staff who are also first-time house-buyers.
Tencent to date has a total headcount of over 10,000.
According to the mail, Mr. Ma thought that rising house prices and CPI index, increasing inflation in China and some other factors all affected Tencent staff’s life quality, so the company made extra budget request for the sake of an overall pay raise. Except for the inflation, housing price in big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen (where Tencent is based) is skyrocketing high, causing many intellectuals escaping from those places, which leads to the war for talent.
On the other hand, with the booming of groupbuying service, online video and e-commerce, Chinese technology companies now have a large appetite for employees. Many websites have already giving pay raise in case of poaching or for the sake of poaching competitors’ staff. Tencent’s move could also attract more talents.
I wonder if Tencent’s average salary was competitive to begin with, but nonetheless, it’s an awesome move by Tencent!
Interest-free housing loan… WOW! (Is that available for all cities?)
I wonder if other tech companies are going to do the same.
Actually, Xunlei(www.xunlei.com) had already done that before, Tencent is the second. I guess other companies with good earnings would follow such move in the near future, or at least give pay raise.
We should start more talent wars if it means the Chinese tech community can buy homes more easily 🙂 homes are ridiculously priced…
As for the payroll part, it’s not true, so far.
more insider tips are welcomed ╰(￣▽￣)╮
Anyone that has read the mail, which I believe can be found somewhere online already, and is intelligent and rational, must agree that “an across-the-board pay raise by approximately 10%” is, so far, not the case.
In this economy, you have to commend them but it’s disappointing to here that they haven’t implemented it.