Insurance subsidiaries under South Korea’s No. 1 conglomerate Samsung Group said Friday that they are offering employees the opportunity to change careers in order to cut jobs as part of efforts to tide over the economic slump.

Samsung Life Insurance Co. and Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, the country’s top life and nonlife insurer, respectively, plan to provide current employees with new job opportunities outside of Samsung under their career conversion program, according to the firms.

Samsung Life said it launched the program to benefit up to 100 employees who have worked at least 12 years for the company, and provide them with necessary support to start new careers in related fields.

“The move aims to add vitality to the organization by improving personnel matters and helping it to buffer the management crisis amid the country’s low interest rates (which dented the firms’ earnings),” an official from Samsung Life said.

Samsung Life said the applicants will be provided with an incentive of an annual paycheck as well as additional benefits that will be determined depending on the length of their service to the company.

Samsung Fire also plans to allow for a sabbatical leave of up to two years for employees who wish to launch new businesses.

The staff members are also allowed to return to the company after if they so desire.

Although Samsung insurers’ job cut plans are not compulsory, market watchers said the move came as a lack of viable high-yield investment options amid volatile market conditions dented their asset management returns.

Hanwha General Insurance Co. also said around 70 employees applied for its voluntary retirement program earlier this month, and Hana HSBC Life Insurance Co. also laid off 25 percent of its staff in September, indicating a handful of other local insurers may join the job cut rally. (Yonhap News)