Korea's companies cluster in Seoul, but Seoul is where their staff leave fastest
Head offices pile into the capital, yet the capital keeps people least. Median tenure runs about 6 years in Seoul and Gyeonggi but past 9 in Gwangju, Busan and Ulsan. The further from Seoul, the longer people stay. Not advice.
AI-assisted, human-reviewed sourcing. Figures are pulled programmatically from the official sources listed at the end of this article and checked by an editor before publication.
We have shown that Korean companies list overwhelmingly from the capital — 85.7% of head offices sit in Seoul, Gyeonggi or Incheon. Here is the other half of that map, and it points the opposite way. The region that holds almost all the companies is the region that holds onto its people the least.
Six years in the capital, nine in the provinces
Take the 2,086 listed companies with 30 or more staff that report an average tenure, and split them by head-office region. In the capital region the median is 6.0 years. Everywhere else it is 7.8 — nearly two years longer at the typical firm. The gap widens by city. The longest-tenured workforces are in the industrial and southern cities: Gwangju at a median 10.3 years, Busan and Ulsan at 9.4, Daegu at 9.3. The shortest are in and around the capital — Seoul 6.2, Gyeonggi 5.8, and the young administrative city of Sejong at just 5.1.
The capital is a fast market, not a loose one
The pattern is not that provincial firms are kinder employers and Seoul ones are careless. It is that the two labour markets run at different speeds. The capital region is dense with employers, which means the next job is close: a worker who wants to move can, and many do, so tenure runs short even at good companies. A manufacturer in Ulsan or Gwangju sits in a thinner local market with fewer places to jump to, and its workforce skews older and more industrial to begin with — people arrive, settle, and stay. The same density that pulls companies and workers into the capital is what keeps nobody there very long.
What this is, and what it is not
This is a map of reported tenure, not a ranking of employers, and it is not investment advice — a short average tenure is not a warning and a long one is not a badge. It also is not a clean natural experiment: provincial firms are older and more industrial, and that mix is part of why they retain, so the region and the industry stories are tangled together rather than separate. What survives is the shape: Korea concentrates its head offices in the capital and its loyalty in the provinces, and the further a company sits from Seoul, the longer, on average, its people stay.
Data & Verification Notes
- Data as of
- Sources
- SeoulMarkets company-filings dataset — Company-reported average employee tenure and head-office region as filed to DART (FY2025 basis), companies with 30+ employees, joined to KRX listings on ticker
- Cross-checks
- Across 2,086 listed companies with 30+ employees, the median employee tenure is 6.0 years in the capital region (Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon) against 7.8 years everywhere else
- By region the longest medians are Gwangju (10.3 years), Busan (9.4), Ulsan (9.4) and Daegu (9.3); the shortest are Sejong (5.1), Gyeonggi (5.8) and Seoul (6.2)
- Excluded figures
- Companies under 30 employees and firms disclosing no region or tenure
- Any judgement of whether long or short tenure is better for a company, its workers or its stock — this counts years, not quality
- The industry and age mix behind the map — provincial firms skew older and more industrial, which is part of why they retain, not a separate finding
The full dataset behind these figures — every listed company, every row — is available to license. SeoulMarkets data for licence →
Not investment advice. SMarkets publishes data journalism for general information only. Nothing here is investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security — any investment you make is at your own risk and responsibility. Figures are derived from official public data sources and may be revised by the issuing agency. Verify independently before acting.
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