Small and midsized enterprises in Korea are increasingly shaking up their workforces as the economy gets worse by the day.
In a survey released yesterday by JobKorea, a leading local employment portal, 68 percent of 456 polled SMEs said that they have already gone through labor restructuring or plan to do so in the latter half of this year, compared to 22.4 percent in 2007.
“The economic slowdown is affecting many SMEs, which are struggling to reduce costs and raise competence in an effort to survive,” said Kim Hwa-su, head of JobKorea.
The most popular restructuring was to move employees to other departments, with 47.1 percent of SMEs saying they did this.
Asking employees to resign was second most popular with 46.5 percent.
The top reason for restructuring was “to reduce labor costs,” chosen by 62.9 percent of the companies.
Around 21.3 percent of the companies said they have restructured during the second half, while 12.7 percent said they are in the process of restructuring.
Also, 34 percent said that they are planning to restructure in this half.
*source-중앙데일리 – South Korea
