Since the beginning of this year, Huishan District in Wuxi has been exploring the establishment of the "Craftsman Incentive Annuity", aiming to benefit employees, enterprises, and the city. For many years, the development of corporate annuity in China has been relatively lagging behind, so that it has failed to play its due role in improving the level of elderly care security and meet the diverse elderly care needs of the people.
“We are a private enterprise, and our employees' social security is fully paid. This is the first time I have heard of a corporate annuity. I am the first employee in the company to receive a corporate annuity”, Lu Xiangwei, Craftsman from Huishan District, Deputy Factory Director of Jiangsu Sujia Group New Materials Co., Ltd., said.
Lu Xiangwei has been engaged in frontline mechanical processing and maintenance technology renovation at Sujia Group New Materials Co., Ltd. for over 20 years. He was awarded the title of "Huishan Craftsman" last year due to his excellent skills.
Starting from June this year, Huishan District of has taken the lead in the country to pioneer the "Huishan Craftsman" incentive annuity plan by allocating over 100 million yuan from the returns on annual investment to pay for the "Huishan Craftsman" enterprise annuity.
Lu Xiangwei is among the 41 beneficiaries that have enjoyed the corporate annuity. Like social security pension, corporate annuity also accumulates early and benefits more.
“The incentive form of an annuity is continuous. According to my calculation, after my retirement, in addition to the social security pension, I can also receive an annuity of approximately 1000 yuan per month for 20 years”, Yan Guoliang, Craftsman from Huishan/Senior Fitter from SAIC Datong Automobile Co., Ltd. Wuxi Branch, said.
In the future, Huishan District will include all eligible craftsmen in the annuity plan when evaluating them every year. As long as they continue to work in Huishan, the district will pay them an enterprise annuity every year. The amount of annuity paid by the government will be adjusted accordingly based on their skill level, teaching with apprentices, and their contribution to reducing costs and increasing efficiency for enterprises.
The Human Resources and Social Security Department of Huishan District stated that Huishan is an important manufacturing base in the Yangtze River Delta region, so it is necessary to attract more outstanding and highly skilled talents, which is precisely the original intention of creating craftsman annuities in the hope of promoting more enterprises to establish annuities for employees.
“The manufacturing population in Huishan District accounts for 57% of the total employed population. Establishing a corporate annuity system can improve the benefits for individual craftsmen after retirement, enhance their sense of belonging to Huishan District, and help retain talents and improve competitiveness for enterprises”, Deng Li, Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Huishan District, Wuxi City, said.
In recent years, Jiangsu has made every effort to implement the national policies on reducing fees and burdens so as to create conditions for employers to establish enterprise annuities. As of the end of 2022, 735.9 thousand employees in Jiangsu have participated in enterprise annuities, with a total fund of 76.91 billion yuan.
“On the basis of summarizing innovative experiences in various regions, we will further explore replicable and promotable talent annuity models, guide more qualified employers to establish enterprise annuities, improve the coverage of enterprise annuities, further improve the multi-level and multi-pillar pension insurance system, and provide more people with a second pension in the hope of helping to build a strong magnetic field for talent cultivation and retention in Jiangsu”, Sheng Xinlian, Director of the Pension Insurance Department of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security, said.
