SEOUL, The number of employees at South Korean conglomerates exceeded 3 million for the first time last year, reaching 11 percent of the overall employment at local companies, according to government data Monday.

The number of workers at large companies, those hiring more than 300 people, rose 3 percent, or 89,000, to a record 3.08 million in 2023 from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea and companies’ regulatory filings.

It is the first time that the number of conglomerate employees has exceeded 3 million since the government began to compile related data in 2004.

Employment at conglomerates has continued to rise for the past six years. In particular, they focused on expanding contact-free businesses, which continued to grow during the recent past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the data showed.

As of June last year, Samsung Electronics Co. ranked first with 124,070 employees, jumping 18 percent from the same month of 2019 before the pandemic began to affect overall industries
in 2020.

Hyundai Motor Co. came in second, with the number of its employees up 3.2 percent to 71,520 in June last year compared with the same month of 2019. Other conglomerates — Kia Corp., LG Electronics Inc. and SK hynix Inc. — had hired more than 30,000 as of June.

In contrast, the pandemic dealt a blow to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which largely rely on face-to-face services and direct deals with consumers.

The number of employees at SMEs slightly rose 0.9 percent, or 238,000, to 25.33 million last year from a year ago.

The proportion of employment at SMEs out of overall business employment fell to the lowest level of 89.1 percent last year. The corresponding proportion of SMEs stood at 90.4 percent in June 2019.

Source: Yonhap News Agency