The president and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Columbia Sportswear Company Tim Boyle has taken the initiative to cut his own salary down to $10,000 (S$14,262) a year while still regularly paying his employees in the midst of COVID-19 crisis.
On top of the pay cut for the CEO, at least ten top executives of the company also took a voluntary 15 percent pay reduction, according to The Oregonian.
Mr Boyle, who made total of $3.3 million in 2018, has decided to reduce his own salary following the closure of Columbia Sportswear retail stores across North America in light of the coronavirus outbreak.
It was noted that Columbia Sportswear issued a statement to announce that the closure of all of its North American brick and mortar stores will be extended until 10 April, but it will still continue to pay their retail employees during the closure period.
About 3,500 retail employees who are affected by the closure will continue receive their regular paychecks under a ‘catastrophic pay’ program.
Public and private sectors in Singapore take a pay cut in coping with the coronavirus outbreak
Similarly, in Singapore, after Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced that President, all Cabinet ministers -including PM Lee – and political office-holders will take a one-month pay cut in solidarity with Singaporeans coping with the coronavirus outbreak.
Many companies have also announced similar pay cuts such as Singapore Airline (SIA), Temasek Holdings, CapitaLand, SMRT, SATS, and SingPost.
The CEO of SingPost Paul Coutts has announced that he will take a 5 percent pay cut with his total earning of $1 million, while the senior vice-presidents and above will also have their pay reduced by 5 percent.
Meanwhile, after the announcement of Temasek bailing out SIA with a generous S$15 billion package, Singapore Airlines (SIA) CEO Goh Choon Phong announced that he will take a 30 percent pay cut starting from 1 April, recalling what he had previously said about taking a 15 percent cut in his own salary.
It was worth noting that the total salary that Mr Goh earns is $1.4 million, though the total package amounts to some $5.5 million in the last FY after including bonuses, shares, and benefits, according to SIA Annual Report FY2018/19.
However, not including bonuses, shares, and benefits, the amount of Mr Goh’s new salary will be close to $1 million, even with a salary cut of 30%.
Not forgetting, the staff of SIA have been offered a voluntary no-pay leave scheme during this difficult time where almost all the flights have been suspended due to drop in air travel demand.
It seems that compared with foreign country, the SIA group CEO is not too generous, even with his high pay in salary.
