If OXY employees are to survive, remove the mandate to contribute 5% employee contribution to OXY retirement. We will need that 5% to make it.
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I just wish they wouldn't deposit the 401k match as worthless Oxy stock. That should be illegal after Enron. The employee should be able to invest the company match as they see fit. I have never worked for a company that did this. I know a lot of people who never transferred their matching funds from the Oxy stock fund to other investments. They didn't know enough about investing. Now, most of the 401k matching funds from their entire careers are wiped out. I feel terrible for them. Especially the ones who just took the VSP and lost a huge chunk of their retirement savings.
@dbp: Agree with most of what you said, but just a small clarification. You stated Oxy's match is better than any company you've ever heard of, but I can tell you it's not as good as APC's was, or other companies I know of in Oil & Gas, along with a number of Tech companies. Still, it is very generous, and we should all be happy with it, like you said. But it isn't the best out there.
Just to clarify, Oxy matches 7% on your 5% contribution. The remaining 7%ish that you’re referring to goes into a retirement (pension type) fund and is contributed to by Oxy whether or not you contribute to your 401k. The only percentage that is really in question for the context of this discussion is with regard to 401k matching and that is 7%. Simple math, contribute 5% and get a total of 12% (excluding pension mentioned above). Contribute 0% and get 0% match. Total loss of 12%. You will continue to receive 7%ish in your pension type fund. I believe it is called the Oxy retirement account.
If you can't invest in your own retirement, why should Oxy pitch in for it? The Oxy retirement contributions are literally the best I've ever heard of from anyone. A lot of companies only match 3%, if anything. And Oxy contributes at least 14%. Pretty much, if you do the bare minimum and leave it, you will live really comfortably in 30 to 40 years if you stayed at Oxy your whole career. On a $100,000 salary, that's $19k a year into retirement, which equates to $540,000 to $760,000 with no investment returns. If you can do 5%, you are talking $1.25M to $2.3M depending on which year you go to. But of course, you get pay raises and promotions hopefully over a 30+ year career. And all you had to do was invest $5,000 a year. That ends up being a 12% to 10% rate of return on your investment.
Employees that contribute 0% get 0% match. Give employees the match in cash for contributing 0%? That’s just dumb. Employees should keep their contribution at a minimum of 5%. Market is down, keep contributing to get stocks, bonds, mutual funds, whatever tf you invest in on the cheap. Can’t really even believe we’re having this conversation.
I think what OP means is give us the OXY match percentage without us having to put in our percentage. Sounds good at first but would it cost Oxy more to do that? I’m assuming not everyone puts in the max matching percentage. What do you give employees who don’t contribute anything right now?
Oh wow, who complains about getting an additional 14% of pay directly into their retirement account while only having to put 5% in to get the full contribution. It is amazing, and to think they kept this person around, sigh. Oxy really needs to better assess employees!
There is no mandate. Simply login to Voya and adjust your contribution to 0%. Oxy enrolled you at 5% for your own benefit. When you contribute 5%, you get the maximum match. If you don’t want the match, just login and change your contribution. On the other hand if Oxy takes away the match, that would definitely trigger COC in combination with the other changes for LAPC.