SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — As people are staying longer hours indoors following the COVID-19 pandemic, dwindling purchases of clothes has also cut the number of disputes over fabric materials and cleaning services, a consumer advocacy group said Tuesday. The Korea Consumer Agency reported an 11.5 percent decrease in the number of complaints (3,071 [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Almost half of call center workers have thought about taking their own lives due to poor labor conditions and extreme emotional labor, a state human rights watchdog survey showed Wednesday. In the survey of 1,996 call center people conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea from August [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Rice farmers in South Korea posted the largest net profit in 20 years in 2021 thanks mainly to favorable weather conditions, data showed Wednesday. Rice farmers’ net income reached some 502,000 won (US$414.2) per 1,000-square-meter paddy last year, up 13.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the data [...]
INCHEON, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — An average of 65 unlicensed Chinese fishing boats have been appearing in waters near the western inter-Korean sea border every day this month ahead of the April-June crab catching season, a sharp rise from about 15 boats on average during the same period last year. According to the Coast [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — About half of South Koreans are against President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to move the presidential office out of Cheong Wa Dae, while some 44 percent support the idea, a poll showed Wednesday. According to the poll of 1,004 adults, conducted by pollster Embrain Public on Sunday and Monday, 51.9 [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is on track to strengthen regulatory standards on floor noise, as well as to introduce an ‘ex-post inter-floor noise confirmation system’ to mandate multi-unit house developers to check the inter-floor noise prevention performance after completing apartment construction. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it [...]
SEOUL, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — A Supreme Court panel has raised the sentencing guidelines for child abuse, recommending at least life imprisonment or 20 years in prison for those convicted of murder by abuse, sources said Tuesday. The non-binding guidelines, which were revised during a meeting of the Supreme Court’s Sentencing Commission on Monday, [...]
SEOUL, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — The justice ministry will grant a one-year extension of stay permits for foreign fishing crewmen in South Korea in a bid to ease labor shortage in the fishing industry, officials said Tuesday. The measure will allow an automatic one-year extension of residence permits for those who are legally staying [...]
SEJONG, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Debt held by wage workers in South Korea grew at a much faster pace in 2020 from a year earlier amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Bank and non-bank loans extended to paid workers in Asia’s fourth-largest economy averaged 48.6 million won (US$39,800) per person [...]
SEOUL, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Ukrainian nationals, including those of Korean descent, will be able to invite more family members to South Korea amid the Ukraine-Russia war, the justice ministry said Tuesday. Until now, family invitations were only given to parents, spouses and underage children, but the ministry decided to expand the invitations to [...]