SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean banks’ household loans increased by the largest amount on record in August amid rising home prices and a rally in the stock market, central bank data showed Wednesday. Outstanding bank loans to local households came to 948.2 trillion won (US$796.9 billion) as of end-August, up 11.7 trillion [...]
SEJONG, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea lost about 274,000 jobs in August, marking a decline in the number of the employed for the sixth consecutive month, as the coronavirus pandemic hammered job markets, data showed Wednesday. The country’s jobless rate rose by 0.1 percentage point on-year to 3.1 percent in August, with the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Electric vehicle leader Tesla Motors Inc. has been South Korean investors’ most-bought issue among foreign shares since July amid an overseas stock buying craze here, data showed Wednesday. Domestic investors bought a net US$1.56 trillion won worth of Tesla shares between July 1 and Tuesday, according to the data [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean food delivery applications saw their sales hit a fresh high in August as more people refrained from dining out and stayed home amid the stricter social distancing scheme, data showed Tuesday. The combined transactions made through the country’s four major food delivery applications came to 1.2 trillion [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of self-employed people in South Korea has fallen at a far faster pace in 2020 than last year in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, data showed Tuesday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had 5.548 million self-employed people as of the end of July, down 127,000 from the same [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — The amount paid out in jobless benefits fell slightly in August from the previous month while the number of employment insurance subscribers increased at a faster rate, data showed Monday. The signs of improvement in the labor market, however, are unlikely to persist this month as the nation tightened [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s tourism income hit a 17-year low in the second quarter of this year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Monday. For the April-June period, the country posted US$1.19 billion in tourism income, down 78.6 percent from $5.57 billion over the same period last year, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Three-fourths of large companies in South Korea have no hiring plan or have not confirmed their recruiting scheme for the second half of the year amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, a poll showed Sunday. Half of the companies that responded to the Korea Economic Research Institute’s (KERI) survey answered [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The proportion of female lawmakers in South Korea’s parliament, as well as that of female ministers in the Cabinet, has reached an all-time high, data showed Saturday. According to the gender equality ministry and Statistics Korea, 57 women were elected in the April 15 general elections, accounting for 19 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koran exports of ice cream swelled more than 11 percent in the first eight months of the year despite a slump in the country’s overall overseas shipments, official data showed Friday. Overseas shipments of South Korean ice-cream products came to US$47 million in the January-August period, up 11.1 [...]