Yongin and Gunsan: A story about jobs

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Yongin and Gunsan: A story about jobs

Published: 13 Jan. 2026, 00:03

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Park Su-ryon

The author is the deputy editor of Content Division Three and the head of Corporate Research at the JoongAng Ilbo.

The semiconductor industry was jolted recently when some politicians from North Jeolla Province floated the idea of relocating a national industrial complex in Yongin, including a Samsung Electronics semiconductor fab, to Saemangeum. The proposal appeared to be an attempt to ride on the Lee Jae Myung administration’s stated resolve to ease excessive concentration in the Seoul metropolitan area. The president moved quickly to settle the matter, saying projects already underway would not be forcibly relocated.

Still, the episode deserves closer attention. It reflects the mounting desperation of regional economies that have failed to secure a new growth engine and continue to fall further behind.

Construction is underway at the Yongin Semiconductor Cluster general industrial complex in Wonsam-myeon, Cheoin-gu, Yongin, on Jan. 9. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Local governments that host advanced manufacturing complexes such as semiconductor clusters reap substantial spillover benefits. According to a 2018 study by Seoul National University’s Economic Research Institute, a single semiconductor fab can generate 128 trillion won ($87.2 billion) in production inducement effects, create jobs for 370,000 people and yield 2.5 trillion won in tax revenue.

That logic explains why President Lee, while serving as governor of Gyeonggi in 2019, successfully attracted an SK hynix semiconductor cluster to Yongin, Gyeonggi, outcompeting cities such as Gumi and Cheongju. Concerns about metropolitan concentration existed even then. Yet the government weighed corporate preferences for a Seoul-area location, local government commitment and talent access, and ultimately eased factory caps in the capital region to select Yongin. The Yoon Suk Yeol administration followed a similar path in 2023, citing the presence of anchor firms, talent attraction and proximity to materials, parts and equipment suppliers when it designated Yongin as the site of a national semiconductor complex that includes Samsung Electronics. With a population of about 1.1 million today, Yongin is projected to reach 1.5 million by 2040.

Yet “lucky” municipalities like Yongin are rare. Cities such as Ulsan, Gumi and Changwon have lost much of their former vitality as factories have moved overseas. Many regional industrial cities face similar decline. Over the past two decades, the gap between the capital region and the rest of the country has only widened.

North Jeolla Province, which pressed for the semiconductor complex, stands out even among struggling regions. In 2025, it ranked last among the nation’s 17 provinces and metropolitan cities in fiscal self-reliance, at 23.6 percent, while recording the highest youth unemployment rate, at 8.7 percent in the third quarter. Within the province, Gunsan had long been a rare source of stable jobs. When its manufacturing base collapsed in 2017, the shock rippled across the local economy and labor market. That year, Hyundai Heavy Industries halted operations at its Gunsan shipyard, followed by the closure of the GM Korea plant in June 2018.

The Moon Jae-in administration responded by promoting the “Gunsan-style jobs” initiative centered on electric vehicles, but tax-funded employment schemes quickly revealed their limits. Efforts to nurture new core industries to replace shipbuilding and automobiles produced a long list of plans, ranging from auto parts and advanced materials to hydrogen-carbon industries, secondary batteries, agri-food and renewable energy. Concrete results were scarce. Gunsan’s predicament is hardly unique. Similar stories can be found across regions in Korea.

Over the past five years, one company has played an outsize role in easing the hunger for jobs in these cities: Coupang. Often at the center of controversy, Coupang is now the country’s second-largest employer after Samsung Electronics, with 91,723 workers. About 70,000 people are employed at more than 100 logistics centers spread across 30 cities nationwide. Many of them are young adults in their 20s and 30s.

According to company disclosures released two years ago, half the work force at Coupang logistics centers outside the capital region, in Chungcheong, Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces, is in their 20s or 30s, compared to 40 percent in the Seoul area. At one logistics center in Gwangju, 70 percent of employees belong to that age group. In Jinhae District of Changwon, 70 percent of newly hired workers in 2021 found jobs at a Coupang logistics facility.

Given those numbers, local governments have spared little effort to attract Coupang centers, offering various forms of support and tax incentives in line with job creation rules. Residents in regions that once envied next-day delivery available only in the capital have welcomed the facilities. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, logistics centers have arguably propped up regional employment and construction more than any other single sector.

The entrance to GM's Gunsan plant in North Jeolla blocked up on Feb. 13, 2018 when the automaker decided to shut down the plant entirely. [YONHAP]

But what does that mean in practice? It means that the livelihoods, wage levels and even local tax bases of many small and mid-sized cities have come to depend heavily on Coupang. It also means young people in those regions are being funneled into jobs known for squeezing efficiency out of workers and for repetitive, isolated physical labor. More troubling still is that many of these jobs are precisely the ones most vulnerable to automation.

Coupang’s role model, Amazon, is already heading down that path. According to reporting by The New York Times, Amazon is considering plans to replace up to 600,000 jobs with robots by 2033. A company that once created jobs across the United States has likely been waiting for the moment when maintaining robots becomes cheaper than paying wages. If that is the future awaiting young people in Korea’s regional cities, the implications are stark.

Not every region can host cutting-edge semiconductor jobs like Yongin. Even so, there must be greater attention to where and how young people in other regions are working today. To dismiss calls for factory relocation as mere parochialism or absurdity is to ignore the depth of despair felt by local communities and their youth. The sighs coming from the regions are simply too heavy to brush aside.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.