SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top electronics makers, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, are restructuring their television businesses amid mounting losses and intensifying competition from Chinese rivals. Samsung’s video display unit has expanded its voluntary retirement program to include more senior staff and halted the intake of new employees through internal transfers, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — More than nine in 10 South Korean small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employing foreign workers say they do so because it is nearly impossible to hire locals, according to a survey released Tuesday. The Korea Federation of SMEs said it polled 503 firms with more than 50 employees in [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans are experiencing relatively high levels of anxiety about aging, particularly over declining health and financial insecurity, with younger adults reporting greater unease than their elders, according to new research released Tuesday. The Hanyang University Institute on Aging surveyed 4,254 adults nationwide last year and developed what it [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — More than one in 10 young South Koreans who rarely leave their homes — so-called “hikikomori” or socially withdrawn youth — reported having contemplated suicide, four times the rate of their peers, according to new government-backed research. The findings, published Tuesday in the Health and Welfare Forum by the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is rolling out an ambitious blueprint to transform its manufacturing base with artificial intelligence, advanced semiconductors, and clean energy infrastructure, part of President Lee Jae-myung’s drive to position the country among the world’s top four manufacturing powers by the end of the decade. The Ministry of Trade, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed a battery plant construction site in Bryan County, Georgia, earlier this month, hundreds of South Korean workers found themselves in shackles, held in freezing rooms with moldy mattresses and little explanation of what crime they had committed. The episode, now reverberating across [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s presidential office said Tuesday it will not be rushed into signing a trade agreement with Washington, cautioning that a deal struck hastily could undermine the interests of Korean companies at a delicate moment in negotiations. Talks have been ongoing since late July, when the two governments reached [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — A growing number of South Koreans in their 40s and 50s are turning to individual Treasury bonds as a preferred tool for retirement planning, according to new data from Mirae Asset Securities, the sole distributor of the instruments. Figures show that 39.3 percent of investors in such bonds over [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s telecommunications industry is reeling after a fresh wave of security breaches left consumers questioning the integrity of mobile networks, just months after a massive SIM card hacking scandal at SK Telecom. The latest blow came at KT, where hackers exploited vulnerabilities in unauthorized micro base stations, or [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s three major telecom operators have unveiled multibillion-won cybersecurity investment plans in the wake of April’s high-profile SK Telecom hack. Yet experts caution that the spending may amount to little more than after-the-fact remedies, failing to address deeper systemic weaknesses. SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus each announced [...]