Refer Report

A survey found that about half of companies felt that this year’s Chuseok business was worse than last year. The number of companies paying Chuseok bonuses has also decreased.

According to the results of the ‘Chuseok Holiday Survey’ released by the Korea Employers Federation on the 5th, 49.1% of all companies responded that “this year’s Chuseok business conditions have worsened compared to last year.” This survey was conducted on 654 companies nationwide with 5 or more regular workers. 44.6% of the companies surveyed said that “this year’s Chuseok business conditions are similar to last year’s.” On the other hand, only 6.3% responded that “the business conditions have improved.”

By company size, the percentage of companies that felt the economic downturn this year was higher in companies with less than 300 regular workers (50.0%) than in companies with more than 300 workers (41.4%). On the other hand, the percentage of companies that responded that the economy had improved was more than twice as high in companies with more than 300 workers (12.9%) than in companies with less than 300 workers (5.5%). This means that the perceived economic temperature gap between large and small businesses is large.

The number of companies planning to pay Chuseok bonuses this year decreased to 64.7% of the total, down from 66.1% last year. By company type, 75.4% of companies with 300 or more regular workers responded that they plan to pay bonuses, but the percentage for companies with less than 300 workers was 63.4%, below average.

74.6% of all companies said that they set the number of days off during this year’s Chuseok holiday to five days. This year’s Chuseok holiday is five days including the weekend, so they are saying that they will rest according to this. On the other hand, 9.3% said they will rest for four days, and 7.3% said they will rest for three days or less. 8.8% of all companies surveyed said they will rest for six days or more.

Reporter Park Jong-oh pjo2@hani.co.kr

Source: Korean