It’s fairly common, but also insane in a world where the average tenure at a company is a few years. Basically a way to say you contribute to a 401K without actually contributing anything.
Sounds like it could be viewed as a small incentive to stay, which given the short average tenure is probably a good thing. High churn rate is not generally a good thing for businesses or products regardless of the individual benefits.
It’s a way potential employees will understand as devaluing the benefit. Basically making it likely a pointless inducement to join. About 50/50 of the companies I joined offered 401k matching vested immediately.
The first company I worked for started offering a 401k about 1 year into my employment there. I remember seeing the low percentage match and 2-year vesting schedule as kind a bit of cheap-skate middlefinger, and declined the benefit. Probably did more harm than good to offer it.
2-5% match is pretty good imho. Any match percentage is basically doubling your savings. If the vesting is good, save up the the limit of match. With tech industry salaries higher 401k matches would just hit the max limit for 401k frequently. The vesting time is the cheap thing. Though once for me, the vesting was still valid if you left the company - it was just delayed.
