SEOUL, Jan. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s Big Mac index moved down two notches from six months earlier to the 25th spot, the global index showed Monday, indicating the South Korean won may be more undervalued than it was before. The average price of a Big Mac hamburger came to US$3.68 in South Korea [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s top 100 large-cap companies have cut more than 7,000 jobs in 2016, data showed Monday, as they are reluctant to hire new employees amid the economy’s prolonged sluggishness. According to the data by market tracker Chaebul.com, the leading companies had a combined 861,578 employees as of the [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 11 (Korea Bizwire) – South Koreans, both poor and rich, are tightening their belts with no economic recovery in sight and the prices of goods ascending, data showed Wednesday. The spending-to-income ratio of local households hit a record low despite stagnant wage levels. Department stores and duty-free shops, two routine shopping spots for [...]
SEJONG, Jan. 10 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s national tax revenue increased sharply in the first 11 months of last year despite the protracted economic slowdown, government data showed Tuesday. The government collected a total of 230.5 trillion won (US$192 billion) in taxes through November in 2016, up 24.5 trillion won from a year earlier, [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Korea Bizwire) – Prices are soaring despite a prolonged economic downturn, and the term “stagflation” is now being bandied about to describe the potential future of the South Korean economy. According to Statistics Korea, the consumer price index last month was up 1.3 percent from the year prior. The index, which remained [...]
SEJONG, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s economic growth is not creating as many jobs as before, government analysis indicated Tuesday, saddling the country with bad news when growth projections are being marked down. Numbers provided by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and Statistics Korea show the government expects 2.6 percent economic expansion [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – Forty-two percent of South Korean households believe their economic conditions will deteriorate next year, according to a survey by Gallup Korea released Friday. The survey suggested that South Korea’s consumer confidence has sharply eroded amid uncertainties in the troubled shipping and shipbuilding sectors, and an ongoing influence-peddling scandal involving [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of newly established companies in South Korea fell slightly last year amid a protracted economic slump, government data showed Friday. Some 813,000 new businesses were created in 2015, down 30,000 from 843,000 tallied a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. They took up [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean household debt rose in 2016 from a year earlier as people borrowed money from banks and other financial companies to buy homes, and invest in real estate and businesses, government data showed Tuesday. The average household debt was tallied at 66.55 million won (US$56,000) as of end-March [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s consumer spending sank to a “seriously” low level in the third quarter of the year, government data showed Monday, as most households tightened their purse strings amid slowing economic growth. Slumping household consumption is widely feared to come as a further drag on Asia’s fourth-largest economy struggling [...]