A view of downtown Seoul with clusters of corporate buildings. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s largest companies have expanded their executive ranks more than three times faster than their employee headcounts over the past five years, widening internal hierarchies even as some industries shed staff, a new analysis shows.
According to data released Nov. 25 by corporate research firm Leaders Index, 331 major companies with comparable filings among the nation’s top 500 by revenue increased their combined workforce by just 2.8 percent between the first quarter of 2020 and the first half of 2025. Employee numbers rose from 1.219 million to 1.253 million — an addition of about 33,900 workers.
During the same period, however, the number of executives climbed 9.3 percent, rising from 12,688 to 13,873. As a result, the ratio of executives per 100 employees edged up from 1.04 percent to 1.11 percent.
The divergence was most striking in finance. Banks reduced staff by 9.7 percent while increasing their executives by 11.6 percent. Across the 12 banks surveyed, employee numbers fell by nearly 9,000, but executive positions grew from 293 to 327. The insurance sector followed the same pattern: a 6.1 percent drop in staff but a 9.4 percent increase in executives.
Other sectors, including telecommunications, retail and petrochemicals, saw both employee and executive numbers fall — though staff cuts were far deeper. The three major telecom operators shed more than 8,800 workers, a decline of 22 percent, while reducing executives by only four. Retail companies cut more than 9,300 employees, compared with a modest 2.9 percent drop in executives. Petrochemical firms, still grappling with industry restructuring, slashed nearly 9,500 jobs but reduced executive positions by just 85.
Of the 23 industries examined, 13 expanded both their workforce and executive teams, while four contracted on both fronts. Only three sectors — led by finance — increased executives while shrinking staff.
Leaders Index said the imbalance reflects recent hiring trends, with companies scaling back open recruitment programs amid an economic slowdown while being slower to reduce managerial roles. The result, the report noted, is a structural widening between the top and bottom of Korea’s corporate workforce.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
