SEOUL, KOREA - The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) released its survey results on June 19. The survey was conducted with Korea's top 600 companies with respect to their new employment plans for this year.
Four out of ten surveyed companies replied that they will reduce employment this year. 39.5 percent,or 62 companies, replied that they will cut payrolls compared to last year's level, while 46.5 percent said that they will hire as much as they did last year.
As for the reason for the payroll cut, 46.8 percent of the respondents picked the downturn of the market, while 24.2 percent selected "the worsening of economic situations both in and outside Korea. In other words, more than 70 percent of the companies surveyed decided to reduce employment mainly due to economic slowdown.
Another factor behind the reduction in employment is the government's tightened regulations that dealta heavy blow particularly to retailers.
