Gaming giant Krafton, owner of PUBG, joins Korea's birthrate battle; plans to offer 100mn won to support childbirth incentive

Krafton, Korea's largest gaming company, has announced it will offer 100 million won ($70,000) in child support to employees who have children.?

According to Korea Joongang Daily, Krafton, which owns one of the popular gaming franchises, PUBG: Battlegrounds, has issued a notice to its workers that it will provide 60 million won as a lump sum to its employees who have children during the time they work at the company. While it will give 5 million won annually for eight years.?

The game publisher company is going to reveal further details of this program later this month. However, Krafton is not the first Korean company to make such an announcement.?

Gaming companies join Korea's birthrate battle

The latest policy was reportedly led by Krafton's founder and chairman, Chang Byung-gyu, who also headed the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution until 2022.?

In the notice issued by Krafton, it also highlighted the mechanism by which it will issue the incentives in February.

The firm also posted 2.71 trillion won in revenue and 1.18 trillion won in operating profit the previous year, which is believed to be its best performance ever. Last year, the operating profit of Krafton was the highest recorded among its domestically listed gaming publishers.

Currently, there are around 1,665 employees as full-time workers in the firm. Moreover, the company led its spending on child support for employees, which suggested that the money is effective in raising the birthrate in their workplaces.

South Korea noticed an increase in birth rates?

Booyoung Group, the construction sector company announced a similar incentive for its employees in February 2024. Apart from this, there are other Korean companies too that offer SOPs to improve the low birth rate in one of Asia's most advanced economies.

In 2024, for the first time in nine years, South Korea will witness an increase in births, with 242,334 births reported in 2024, which was 3.1 per cent higher than in 2023.

While on the other hand, in 2023, there were 230,000 births in South Korea, which is 7 per cent less than the previous year, as per official data.?

However, the fertility rate went down to 0.72 in 2023 from 0.78 earlier this year, while the country needs a fertility rate of 2.1 to maintain its population.