SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — When a popular YouTube commentator recently began selling a “990 won salt bread,” it was more than a marketing stunt. It was a pointed jab at what Koreans have come to call “breadflation,” a steep rise in bread prices that many believe has made the staple disproportionately expensive at home compared [...]
FOLKSTON, Ga. Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — The return of more than 300 South Korean workers detained in last week’s U.S. immigration raid at Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution’s joint battery plant is drawing relief in Seoul, but partner companies say their absence has left a gaping hole in the highly specialized construction project. [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — At a time when glowing screens compete for nearly every spare moment of attention, most South Korean adults still reached for a traditional paper book last year. A new nationwide survey finds that four out of five adults in the country — 80.4 percent — read at least one [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s human rights watchdog has ruled that public libraries violated children’s right to information by restricting access to sex education and gender equality books that were not legally classified as harmful publications. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea said Monday that several libraries had either removed such titles [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — As South Korea weighs proposals for a shorter workweek and extended retirement age, a growing number of companies are already adopting flexible schedules — in some cases reducing hours to just four days — in what could become a model for broader labor market reform. Major firms including SK [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s central bank has warned that failing to act decisively on climate change could leave the nation facing prolonged inflationary pressures as extreme heat and heavy rainfall increasingly disrupt prices. In a report released Monday, the Bank of Korea found that a one-degree Celsius “heat shock,” defined as the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Uncertainty surrounding the United States’ trade policy alone is estimated to reduce South Korea’s economic growth rate by about 0.13 percentage point this year, the central bank said Monday. In late July, Seoul and Washington reached a crucial agreement in which the U.S. imposes a 15 percent tariff on [...]
SEJONG, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s government has proposed a 2025 budget that emphasizes everyday safety and cost-of-living relief, with measures ranging from preventing car accidents and manhole falls to subsidizing school fruit snacks and low-cost weddings in national parks. The Ministry of Economy and Finance on Sunday outlined plans that reflect a [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean schools are preparing to revise their internal rules after lawmakers passed a law banning the use of smartphones and other digital devices during class beginning next semester. Yet with education authorities leaving key decisions to individual schools, administrators are grappling with how far the restrictions should go. [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — A sweeping change to South Korea’s labor law is already fueling a surge of demands from subcontractor unions, rattling the country’s largest corporations and raising fears of escalating industrial conflict. On August 24, parliament passed the so-called “Yellow Envelope Law,” an amendment to the Trade Union and Labor Relations [...]