Goldman Sachs drops special payment unique to Hong Kong
US investment bank Goldman Sachs plans to eliminate local living allowance subsidies for its Hong Kong staff from 2010 but will continue to arrange and pay for housing for employees that relocate to the city, sources say.
'If you want to bring in talent you have to find school places for children, a place to live, etc and you have to pay for that. That will always be true of any international city and it's the same as it is in New York, London and Hong Kong. That's not changing for anyone in the world,' said a person familiar with the situation.
What will change is the housing allowance that is unique to Hong Kong, a benefit most companies in the city offer to employees. At Goldman, employees had received that in the form of a separate monthly cash supplement based on their seniority.
Now it would be incorporated into their monthly salary or become part of the annual bonus and dependent on the firm's performance in any given year, sources said.
The monthly cash payment was unique to Hong Kong and as a result the bank decided to scrap it, particularly since Beijing staff had no such benefit.
Keeping pay and benefits relatively the same around the world makes it easier to rotate staff globally.