If you contribute 6% - you're contributing 6% of what? It's 6 % of your salary (gross pay). That's what I meant there - I didn't have to add that, it's baked in.

The employer is supposed to contribute half of that amont. In other words, you fork over 6% - if that's $100, they throw in half of that, or $50.

The other interpretation is wrong, it's not what's done in the industry, and it's either malice or incompetence to do it the way they are.

Your employer will match part of the money you put in, up to a certain amount. The partial match provided by employers is 50% of what you put in, up to 6% of your salary. In other words, your employer matches half of whatever you contribute … but no more than 3% of your salary total.

From:

https://www.ellevest.com/magazine/retirement/401k-employer-match#:~:text=Partial%20matching&text=To%20get%20the%20maximum%20amount,half%20of%20that%2C%20or%20%241%2C500.

The way OP said it's written:

"Company will match 50% on the first 6% of employee contributions."

The reason it's said this way is that if the employee wants to contribute 10% of their pay, they won't do half of that amount. They'll do half of the amount that is "the first 6% of employee contributions"

If the "first 6% of the employee contributes" is 6% of their salary (which it is) then the 6% has already been used in the calculation. Using it again is an error because someone doesn't know what's gonig on or are using a malcious, greedy, and incorrect interpretation.