Working in New Year? JD pays kids' trips

JD.com Inc, China's second-largest e-commerce player, announced it will invest about 75 million yuan ($10.9 million) to let the children of its employees reunite with parents who have to work during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.

For some families, the Spring Festival holiday is the only time during the year when they can all be together, as those who left rural areas to work in the cities travel home to reunite with family and friends, and others travel from the countryside to cities or distant towns where their loved ones work.

JD Chairman and CEO Richard Liu initiated a project in 2014 to give employees who live apart from their children a subsidy of 3,000 yuan if they have a child, and an additional 3,000 yuan if they have more than one, so that the children can travel to visit their parents during the Spring Festival.

Since the project launched in 2014, JD has spent around 200 million yuan to help more than 20,000 JD employees enjoy time with their families during the holidays.

The program was extended to childless employees so that they can get an extra stipend for their hard work during the holiday since many of them have to spend it apart from their loved ones as well.

JD has decided to continue offering services including logistics and delivery during the Spring Festival holiday to satisfy consumers' needs since 2013. This allows people to bring gifts to their families or even to have packages shipped directly to them throughout the holiday.

It plans to strengthen the service during this year's Spring Festival. Proprietary regular orders in 110 cities across the nation, big orders from 446 cities, districts and counties, and the orders involving in fresh food and cold-chain logistics from 69 cities will be delivered uninterruptedly, which means tens of thousands of employees have to be on duty.

Most of the employees of JD come from rural areas.

"I missed my family so much and was disappointed when I thought I wouldn't see them on the Lunar New Year's Eve," said Yan Yong, a deliveryman at JD's Temple of Heaven office in Beijing.

fanfeifei@chinadaily.com.cn