World’s Largest Shipping Company Hits Record Profits, Pays $80M in Bonuses

A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest shipping company, announced Wednesday it would pay $1,000 bonuses to each of its 80,000 employees after projecting a record $17 billion in profits for 2021.

Those soaring profits were due, in no small part, to the skyrocketing costs of shipping from this year’s massive supply disruptions.

Bloomberg News reported seeing a Maersk internal memo that said bonuses would be paid to all employees in their December or January paychecks except the top 400 management staffers, who have their own bonus program.

“In a massive team effort our colleagues across the globe have risen beyond the call of duty to respond to our customers’ needs. And this has not been easy given the unknowns and disruptions that we had to deal with, the impacted supply chains, congestions, and capacity shortages,” CEO Soren Skou said in the memo.

Bloomberg recalled Maersk paying a similar bonus to most of its staff in 2020, when the company emerged from several years of losses to post a $2.9 billion profit. The company just posted the best third quarter in its 117-year history. – READ MORE