Coupang is set to pay 1 million won ($828) to each of its 2,600 temporary workers who have had to self-quarantine because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Thursday, the country’s leading e-commerce operator issued an in-house notice from Representative Director Sam Ko, saying, “We thought we had weathered the crisis. But COVID-19 has started spreading again, mainly in the metropolitan areas.”

He added, “This is not an easy battle.”

Coupang has made various social contributions to help combat COVID-19, Ko said.

Coupang froze the price of masks in January and has sold over 100 million masks at a loss of 6 billion won over the last 30 days alone. The firm delivered daily necessities to over 1 million households every day. It hired more than 20,000 new staff in just the first quarter and invested more than 10 billion won in COVID-19 safety measures for its facilities. It planned to invest an additional 11 billion won in COVID-19 safety measures in June alone.

“Coupang wants everyone who works at the company to have the support they need. That’s why the company is going to pay a livelihood assurance allowance of 1 million won per person to the over 2,600 temporary workers who are on the government’s quarantine list,” he said.

“Moving forward, Coupang will pay this allowance to any temporary employee who is quarantined because of their work at Coupang. We will do this until the COVID-19 crisis is over.” 

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)