SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — Companies in South Korea saw their profitability shrink in the second quarter from a year earlier despite a sales jump due mainly to a rise in commodity prices, central bank data showed Wednesday. Their operating profit to sales ratio stood at 7.4 percent in the April-June period, down 0.3 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Four South Korean companies — LG Chem Ltd., Samsung C&T Corp., Namhae Chemical Corp. and Doosan Enerbility Co. — on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding to promote cooperation in the production and usage of ammonia-based clean hydrogen. Under terms of the MOU, LG Chem plans to introduce clean [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 1 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea said Wednesday that it will launch a direct power purchase agreement (PPA) system that will enable businesses using large amounts of electricity to directly purchase the electricity produced using renewable energy without going through the electric power market. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — After narrowing during the COVID-19 pandemic, the wage gap between employees of large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is showing signs of expanding again due to the rapid recovery of large companies’ wage growth rate. The wage level of SMEs in proportion to that of large companies [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Major South Korean companies have seen their cost burdens rise sharply in 2022 from a year earlier on surging raw material prices and wage increases, data showed Friday. Their rising cost burdens are widely feared to undercut their profitability down the road amid flagging demand stemming from worries over [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — With record-breaking rain hitting Seoul and Gyeonggi Province on Monday, major corporations asked employees to work from home. Companies with prior work-from-home experience during the pandemic were able to quickly respond to the situation. Samsung Electronics instructed all employees struggling with the morning flood to work from home. LG [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The combined workforce of large South Korean companies expanded 1.5 percent in the first half of the year from a year earlier amid eased COVID-19 restrictions, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The number of workers hired by 459 out of the country’s top 500 firms by sales totaled 1.55 [...]
SEOUL, July 22 (Korea Bizwire) — The share of employees aged 50 and over exceeded that of those under 30 at South Korea’s major companies after the outbreak of the coronavirus, primarily due to the decline in new hires, data showed Thursday. The nation’s 72 major companies published their 2021 sustainability management reports, of which [...]
SEOUL, July 20 (Korea Bizwire) — The debt ratio of South Korea’s leading 1,000 companies by sales has more than halved over the past 21 years, pointing to a sharp increase in their financial health, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The average debt-to-equity ratio of those big companies stood at 160 percent in 2021, compared [...]
SEOUL, July 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Major companies in South Korea have seen their total economic contribution soar 20 percent over the past nine years thanks to their robust growth, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The value of economic contribution created by the country’s top 100 firms by sales came to 1,238 trillion won (US$950 [...]