Korea Business Review · Section
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White-Collar Employment and Organizational Restructuring Accelerate Amid AI Expansion
In May 2026, regular workers in South Korea decreased for the first time in 26 years and 5 months since the Asian financial crisis, with notable declines in professional, scientific, and technical services as well as among the younger generation. As global big tech companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Salesforce continue layoffs into 2026, Salesforce revealed that it reduced its customer support workforce by 45%, from 9,000 to about 5,000, following the adoption of AI agents. A 'Great Flattening' trend of shrinking middle management is corroborated by Gartner's forecasts and empirical data from Gallup and Live Data Technologies. The shock of restructuring is first manifesting at the entry points of the labor market—specifically fresh hiring—with Stanford studies showing relative declines in employment for newcomers aged 22-25 in high AI-exposure roles. However, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and other industry leaders caution against blaming AI alone for layoffs, offering a balanced diagnosis that the current white-collar contraction is a complex phenomenon driven by a combination of economic slowdowns, cost-cutting, and over-hiring adjustments.
이지영 기자 · 08/10/2026
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Samsung Injecting 200,000 Million Won into Samsung Miso Financial Foundation to Expand Low-Interest Loans for Vulnerable Groups and Self-Employed in Financial Blind Spots
이우리 선임기자 · 07/18/2026
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Tesla Korea Raises Prices by Up to 7 Million Won Just a Day After Subsidy Confirmation: Why Tesla Prices Move Like Market-Priced Fish
류현진 선임기자 · 07/12/2026
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Gasoline Prices Heading Down to the 1,800-Won Range? Government Cuts Maximum Oil Prices for the First Time
이지영 기자 · 06/27/2026
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Sole Proprietor Loan Overdue Dues Reach 14.6 Trillion Won… Era of 1 Million Closings, Alley Businesses Surviving on Debt
김민경 책임기자 · 06/24/2026
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Government to Clear KRW 2.2 Trillion in Small Business Guaranteed Debt, Reopening Paths to Recovery Blocked by Arrears
On June 19, the South Korean government announced a comprehensive overhaul of the small business guarantee system through the 'Establishment Plan for a Sustainable Guarantee Support System' during a meeting of the Emergency Economic Headquarters. Over the five-year period from 2026 to 2030, the government will clear KRW 2.2 trillion in distressed guarantee assets through write-offs and debt adjustments, affecting an estimated 130,000 businesses. The plan reopens guarantee channels previously blocked by arrears and closures by permitting new guarantees for written-off businesses with cleared public records and for bankruptcy-exempt individuals who undergo rapid write-offs. To enhance the soundness of guarantee institutions, the government will prohibit full guarantees in principle, lowering the average guarantee rate from 94.3% to 90% by the end of 2027 and the re-guarantee rate from 50% to 30%. Additional goals include relaxing the guarantee limit to KRW 800 million for growth-oriented small businesses, introducing intellectual property (IP) guarantees, supplying KRW 2 trillion in region-specific guarantees by 2030, and reducing the subrogation rate from 5.07% at the end of 2025 to 3.2% by 2030.
이우리 선임기자 · 06/22/2026
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The AI Job Threat Started with the 'Door That Closes First': Data-Identified Occupations Most Vulnerable to Shaking
In May 2026, U.S. layoffs reached their highest level since the pandemic at 97,000, with about 40% citing AI as the primary reason (surging from 7% in January to 40% in May), although prudent voices suggest AI may sometimes be used as a convenient excuse. The first sign of the AI shock is not mass layoffs, but rather barriers to entry for youth; employment rates for 22- to 25-year-olds in high AI-exposure jobs in the U.S. fell by about 14% compared to 2022. Clerical and administrative jobs are being most directly shaken: about 86% of the roughly 6.1 million high-exposure, low-adaptability workers in the U.S. are women, and similar signals are being captured in Europe (such as Ireland at 7% and Meta cutting 8,000 jobs). In South Korea, youth jobs shrank by 211,000 over the past three years (208,000 of which were in high AI-exposure industries) while jobs for those in their 50s increased by 209,000, leading the Bank of Korea to diagnose this as 'seniority-biased technological change'—matching the direction seen in the U.S. However, the WEF projects 92 million jobs replaced and 170 million created by 2030 (a net increase of 78 million), indicating that the core question is not whether jobs will disappear, but who will adapt first and how.
류현진 선임기자 · 06/16/2026
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The Paradox of the 40 Trillion Won Delivery Era: Why Rider Incomes Are Moving Backward
While the delivery market transaction volume grew 10.9% year-on-year to reach an annual scale of 40 trillion won as of January 2026, riders' perceived incomes have actually decreased, leading to a paradox where protests are even calling for a minimum wage per delivery. Although Baemin announced that the average monthly income of riders increased to 3.93 million won, this is based on total gross income before cost deductions for full-time riders working 40 hours or more per week, creating a wide gap with the actual net income of many riders who must bear fuel and insurance costs. The first cause is the free-delivery competition among platforms that began in earnest in 2024, where cost-cutting pressures were passed on to rider delivery fees, lowering the unit price per delivery and increasing labor intensity through bundled deliveries. The second and third causes are oversupply due to the influx of two-job workers amid a youth employment slump, and a cost-shifting structure featuring opaque algorithmic dispatch and straight-line distance delivery fee calculations. Entering 2026, as discussions on a minimum wage per delivery, the implementation of a presumptive employee status system for platform workers, and legislation on fee transparency gain momentum, the era of 'earning as much as you run' has passed, and the very rules of unit pricing and distribution have been brought to the negotiation table.
류현진 선임기자 · 06/11/2026
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Retail Funds Flock to AI Semiconductor ETFs: Why Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix Value Chains are Chosen
In the first half of 2026, retail investor funds are rapidly flowing into AI and semiconductor-themed products in the domestic ETF market. However, looking closely at the actual capital flows, rather than being evenly distributed across the entire semiconductor value chain, there is a clear pattern of stronger concentration in compressed ETFs with high weightings in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
이우리 선임기자 · 06/09/2026
