Pulmuone’s Living Wage System

Pulmuone uses the concept of "living wage" to ensure that workers within its supply chain can provide essential food, clothing, and shelter and lead a humane life. The living wage, which is different from the minimum hourly wage covered by the Labor Standards Act, is a wage setting method that takes into account the prices in the relevant region and the minimum cost of living for workers and their dependents. In order to ensure that executives and employees, and by extension workers throughout the supply chain, can enjoy an appropriate quality of life, Pulmuone's "Living Wage Evaluation" standards are divided into two categories: domestic and overseas workplaces.

First, in the case of domestic sites, the living wage announced by the government is used as the standard for evaluation. As most of our members, partners, supply chains, and franchises are located in Korea, we reflect Seoul City's living wage, which reflects the highest price level. This is an evaluation standard based on living wage data released by the local government around September and October every year. For overseas business sites, the MIT Living Wage Calculator is applied and is based on the living wages of California, Maryland, and New York, where Pulmuone's U.S. subsidiaries are located.

Currently, as data reliability is limited due to difficulties in securing personal information by reason of the volatility of dependents and the population engaged in economic activities at the home's of each person surveyed, the evaluation standard for living wage was established based on the standard for a single family in each region. We plan to gradually subdivide this in the future according to the advancement of evaluation criteria.

1. Standards for Applying Living Wage Evaluation in 2024

Pulmuone is obtaining a code of conduct for fair wage payment from all of its partner companies, and plans to establish a process to evaluate whether the key partner companies are providing living wage their employees by 2025.
 

[2024 Living Wage Evaluation Process]

[Living Wage Evaluation Result]

[Pulmuone's Living Wage Compared to Average Living Wage]

Through this evaluation, Pulmuone examined the fourth commitment of the 10 principles of Human Rights Management, which is "we observe working hours in accordance with the Labor Standards Act and strive to go over the minimum wages and benefits set by local laws and regulation". Pulmuone has established various sustainability policies to ensure employees' wages while maintaining competitiveness in the food industry, and is taking on various business challenges to help our wholesome food create better value. In the future, Pulmuone's challenges will lead to various success stories, and we plan to actively encourage our suppliers and partners to widely utilize the living wage system.