Employment by Small Firms Rising

Small and medium-sized industrial firms are expanding their employee numbers as the Korean economy shows signs of recovery.
The Industrial Bank of Korea on June 4 released a report on trends of small and medium industries in April.
According to the report, firms whose worker numbers had increased since the previous month accounted for 19 percent of those surveyed - 3.1 percent more than the 15.9 percent of companies which have decreased the numbers of their employees since last March.
Companies feeling a shortage in the number of their workers in April went up 0.1 percent to 11.7 percent from 11.6 percent in March, while firms saying they had excessive laborers declined 0.6 percent to 3.0.
Employment by firms has increased for two consecutive months, turning around the trend of decreasing employment which was in evidence in the 17 months up to March.

Jangsoo Seo:jsbee@joongang.co.kr