SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s average household income rose for the ninth consecutive quarter in the third quarter of this year, partly driven by a sharp increase in transfer income, government data showed Thursday. The average monthly income of households came to 5.44 million won (US$3,699) in the July-September period, up 3.5 [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean young adults are taking significantly longer to land their first full-time job, with those living outside the Seoul metropolitan area facing a growing disadvantage, according to new government research released Thursday. A study by the Korea Employment Information Service (KEIS) found that the average job-search period for young [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — What once felt like the plot of a workplace drama is increasingly echoing real life for many middle-aged South Koreans. In the popular series The Dream Life of Mr.Kim (the story of manager Kim working at a large company in Seoul), a seemingly secure executive finds himself abruptly sidelined and [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said Wednesday that South Korea stands ready to take “decisive action” to curb excessive volatility in the foreign-exchange market, as the won continues to face downward pressure against the U.S. dollar. “The won tends to react more sensitively than other currencies,” Koo told reporters, adding that [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is set to transfer a retiring 1,200-ton submarine to Poland free of charge, military sources said Wednesday, in apparent support for a South Korean defense firm bidding for the European country’s submarine procurement project. Under the plan, the defense ministry is expected to hand over the ROKS [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea plans to create a national medical data-sharing platform modeled after the Mayo Clinic system in the United States, aiming to overcome long-standing privacy barriers that have slowed the use of artificial intelligence in health care. The Ministry of Science and ICT said Wednesday that it will launch a [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea now has the highest employment rate among seniors in the OECD, a trend driven less by choice than by economic hardship as the country enters an era of rapid population aging. A report released Wednesday by Oh Yoo-jin, a researcher at the National Pension Research Institute, shows that [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Supreme Court has ruled for the first time that a person can be criminally punished for possessing or transferring a package they believe contains illegal drugs, even if the package in fact contains no narcotics. The decision broadens the scope of liability under the country’s narcotics laws and [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Seoul police announced on Tuesday that they will carry out an unannounced, citywide crackdown on traffic violations by motorbikes, bicycles and personal mobility devices such as electric scooters, amid rising safety concerns and a surge in related accidents. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said it will deploy 354 officers from [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea is preparing to abolish a decades-old legal requirement obligating civil servants to obey orders from their superiors, a cornerstone of the country’s bureaucratic culture since 1949. The move marks one of the most significant shifts in public-sector governance in more than half a century. The Ministry of Personnel [...]