Online Retailer Coupang Frantically Woos New Staff

Published on 2020/06/28 | Source

Online retailer Coupang is offering experienced technicians a W50 million signing bonus if they come to work for it amid a surge in business during coronavirus lockdown (US$1=W1,203).

A signing bonus is highly unusual in Korea, and a similar move made headline last year when fintech start-up Viva Republica, which operates mobile payment platform Toss, hired experienced workers for a signing bonus equal to an annual salary in their last job and a promised salary 1.5 times higher than that.

Coupang on Thursday said it wants to hire some 200 tech talents with over five years of experience like Android and iOS developers, product designers, and information security engineers.

Coupang explained the idea behind what some might see as blatant poaching. "We expect a lot of applications, but we decided to offer a signing bonus out of our need to recruit the best of the best", it said.

Coupang's sales benefited from soaring demand during lockdown and hired 20,000 new workers in the first quarter of this year alone.