On jobs, listed companies still struggle to get well

A job fair held in Gangnam in April. Some 43 percent of listed companies said they continued to struggle in bringing the number of jobs up to the level of the pre-pandemic. [YONHAP]

Payrolls of listed Korean companies are still lower than before the pandemic, although some reported a recovery, a survey showed.

According to a survey by the Federation of Korean Industries released Tuesday, 808 companies listed on the Kospi and Kosdaq said their number of employees last year was less than a year earlier. That’s 43.1 percent of the 1,874 companies listed on the two local stock markets.

The survey did not include financial companies.

Of the 696 Kospi-traded companies that were surveyed, 42.2 percent or 294 companies said that their employees were fewer than a year earlier. Of the 1,178 Kosdaq-trade companies, 43.6 percent or 514 said the same.

The results were an improvement from 2020 when 52 percent of companies said they saw their number of employees shrink on-year.

The number of people employed by listed companies totaled 1.48 million in 2021. While that is higher than 1.47 million in 2020, it is lower than the near 1.5 million employed in 2019, before Covid-19.

The survey found that 26.7 percent or 500 companies saw their payrolls shrink for two consecutive years.

The number of people employed at those 500 companies were 436,000 in 2021, 72,000 fewer than in 2019, a 14 percent drop.

The study also found that 11.2 percent or 210 companies saw revenues and operating profit shrink sharply.

“It’s too early to say the job market is recovering because the number of employees at listed companies increased last year largely due to the base effect resulting from the pandemic crisis [in 2020],” said Choo Kwang-ho, head of the economic research division at the FKI.

The Korean government has said the number of people employed in the country has been growing for 14 straight months.

While manufacturing has been enjoying a recovery thanks to robust exports, most of the newest jobs were created by government programs to hire senior citizens and are temporary positions.

BY LEE HO-JEONG [lee.hojeong@joongang.co.kr]