SEJONG, Mar. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – In South Korea’s rapidly aging society, where the government has been scrambling to encourage childbirth through expanded parental leave benefits, a significant segment of the workforce finds itself left out: the self-employed. Park Chang-hyun, 34, works as a delivery rider in Gwangju. When he recently inquired about parental leave allowances [...]
SEOUL, Mar. 6 (Korea Bizwire) – The value of delinquent loans among self-employed individuals in South Korea has surged by nearly 50% in a year, with the delinquency rate of young self-employed individuals in their 20s and 30s increasing the fastest. This trend indicates that self-employed individuals are facing financial difficulties due to high interest rates [...]
SEJONG, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) – For the first time, the number of self-employed individuals over the age of 60 in South Korea has surpassed the two million mark. This significant milestone, primarily attributed to a sharp increase in seniors entering the transportation sector, including personal taxi and delivery services, reflects a broader trend of older [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The proportion of self-employed people in South Korea touched a record low in 2022 in the wake of the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, data showed Monday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had 5.63 million self-employed people as of end-December, accounting for 20.1 percent of the 28.09 million employed in the country, according [...]
SEOUL, March 8 (Korea Bizwire) — An increasing number of self-employed people who lag behind in information capability compared to large businesses are adopting startup application services designed to help the operation of restaurants and stores. Dodo Cart, a restaurant inventory management app operated by local startup Spoqa, provides an analytical report on the details [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The ratio of the self-employed and other nonwage workers in South Korea touched an all-time low in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Thursday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had 6.52 million unsalaried workers as of the end of December last year, marking the 23rd consecutive year of decline, [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Four out of 10 self-employed people in South Korea are considering closing their businesses due to sluggish sales amid the long-enforced strict social distancing rules during the coronavirus pandemic, a survey showed Sunday. According to the survey of 500 people operating restaurants, retail and other service businesses by the [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — The self-employed who shut down operations due to the government’s coronavirus pandemic-related restrictions will be allowed to terminate their commercial lease contracts earlier than the end date. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that the revision of the Commercial Building Lease Protection Act took immediate effect after [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — A recent study showed that self-employed individuals operating their own business as the head of a household make less income than the labor income earned by household members, likely due to a severe slump in the market for self-employed work. The research center under the Korean Confederation of Trade [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Thousands of angry self-employed workers staged late-night drive-through protests in Seoul and provincial cities nationwide until early Thursday morning, condemning health authorities for endangering their livelihoods in their drive to combat COVID-19 through tough social distancing restrictions. An association of self-employed businesses, which organized the protest rallies, said at [...]