Throughout Asian countries, China has the highest average pay rate (Martocchio, 2017). As Martocchio (2017) went on to explain, China’s high wages can be attributed to a large trade surplus in the country as well labor shortages that China has experienced. According to Asinta (2021), China has mandated retirement funds, medical coverage, unemployment benefits, workers compensation, and maternity benefits.
In the US, there are also mandated benefits that companies must offer, but they are not as generous as those offered in China. For example, maternity leave is an additional bonus, many times new parents need to wait until they qualify for FMLA to cover their time away from work to welcome or place a new child. In the US, minimum wage has been slowly increasing, in 2013 Obama started the initiative by raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour (Martocchio, 2017). Now, many states are making the decision to raise their own wage requirements and companies are establishing their own pay rates to attract and retain employees. Additionally, even though employee benefits are not mandated as they are in China, more and more companies are choosing to offer generous benefits because that is what attracts desired talent. Even though the benefits are not mandated as they are in countries such as China, it is becoming more and more obvious that offering these benefits are beneficial to companies and furthermore, the economy.