HD Hyundai opens free in-house daycare center for up to 300 children

HD Hyundai Co., the owner of South Korea’s biggest shipbuilding group, opened an in-house daycare center at its new headquarters building in Korea on Thursday to look after up to 300 children while their parents are at work in hopes of helping boost the country’s birth rate, said the company.

Its new free company nursery Dream Boat boasts a floor area of 2,222 square meters, with 14 classrooms and six play areas. As many as 300 children, from newborn babies to youngsters up to five, can stay at the daycare center until their parents get off work. 

“I hope that this place can be a little help to our employees in easing some of their major parenting concerns,” HD Hyundai Chung Ki-sun said during the opening ceremony of the nursery on Thursday. “I hope Dream Boat can set a good example to our society grappling with a low fertility rate and career disruption issues.”

This is the latest effort by HD Hyundai to encourage its employees to have babies.

In January, the company announced a plan to pay its employees 6 million won ($4,535.15) annually in preschool tuition per child for three years and allow all affiliates’ workers to take flexible working hours.

Its generous parenting aid comes at a time when South Korea is grappling with the plummeting fertility rate, which hit the world’s lowest of 0.78 in 2022. The Korean government’s slew of policies including ample financial support to bump up the fertility rate have not paid off.

HD Hyundai’s new daycare center will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and offer three free meals on top of free snacks.

A total of 50 staff including teachers and a nurse will take care of the children at the center. Further, native English speakers will teach English to children aged three to five years old.   

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.