Section
Macro
Growth, prices, employment and the external balance.
Korea's exports show no sign of US-tariff rerouting
A popular worry is exporters rerouting around US tariffs via Vietnam or Mexico. Korea's own customs data shows the opposite over the past year: the US share of Korean exports rose 2.6 points; Vietnam and Mexico's shares both fell.
Korea's air cargo grew 10% in two years. China and Japan grew 3x that
Freight arriving in Korea from China rose 23.8% and from Japan 28.3% between July 2024 and July 2026, while total air cargo grew only 10.0%. The catch-all 'rest of Asia' bucket, still the largest single source, barely moved and lost share.
China's Korea-bound air traffic jumped 48% in two years
Passengers arriving in Korea from China rose 47.7% from July 2024 to July 2026, while flights on that route rose only 21.4% — planes are fuller, not just more frequent. Middle East and Oceania traffic fell over the same year.
Korea's August exports: 68.7% jump, confirmed
A post shared on r/korea said Korea's August exports jumped 68.7% to $98.25bn. That matches the Korea Customs Service's own release exactly — and it's the 15th straight month of a record August-equivalent high.
Korea CPI: mobile fee jumped 26.7%, rest flat
Korea's August CPI rose 3.09% year-on-year. The 'telecom base effect' two papers cited sits almost entirely in one line: the mobile phone fee index, up 26.74% — while landline and internet fees barely moved.
96% of Korean firms pay men more
A census of 2,282 Korean listed companies' own half-year filings: the median company pays men 35.9% more than women. 96.0% pay men more by 5% or more. Only 1.4% pay women more.
Korea's listed firms: median tenure is 6.2 years
A census of 2,839 Korean listed companies' own annual filings: the median company's staff has stayed 6.2 years on average. 1 in 8 companies average under 3 years — and a smaller 1 in 17 average 15 years or more.
28,244 falls: Korea's top workplace injury in 2024
Korea's Ministry of Employment and Labor tracks every reported workplace injury by cause. In 2024, simple falls and slips — not machinery, not falls from height — injured more workers than anything else. A second cause is catching up fast.
Korea's ₩107tn offshore filings: mostly new filers
Korea's National Tax Service reported ₩107.1tn in offshore assets this year, up 13.3%. But the filer count rose 9.1% to 7,484 — the average holder reported only 3.9% more than last year.
Meritz Securities: top pay, 2.18x gender gap
CEOScore reported nine Korean firms with H1 2026 average pay above ₩100m. We re-pulled the same DART filings and split them by gender — every one has a gap, from 1.31x to 2.18x.
Korea's biggest trade partner isn't its most vital
Rank Korea's trade by size and one or two partners top every list. But a rank measures volume, not dependence — and the countries Korea sells to are not the ones it buys from. Size is not the same as need.
Not one Korean region's merchants expect improvement
Korea's small merchants are asked each month if they expect the next to be better. In the latest regional data, all 17 provinces answer no — the index runs 64.5 to 80.6, every one below the neutral 100, big cities near the bottom.
Overtime fell 30% — less strain, or less pay?
Korean regular-worker overtime fell from 11.5 hours a month in 2011 to 8.1 in 2025 — down about 30%. Fewer overtime hours can mean a lighter load or a lighter paycheck, and an hours figure will not tell you which.
Taxes and transfers nearly halve Korea's income gap
Korea's income gap before tax barely moved in seven years — the top-to-bottom ratio sat near 11. After taxes and transfers it drops to about 5.8. The real story is the gap between market and disposable income, not either number alone.
Korea's small merchants haven't felt neutral in years
A survey just put small-merchant sentiment at a year-high — 95.1 for September. But that is a hope, still below the neutral 100 — and on our reproducible series neither hope nor reality has touched 100 once in three years.
Women's workforce share: firm choice or sector mix?
Rank Korean firms by their share of women and apparel tops the list, heavy industry sits at the bottom. But that may sort sectors, not employers — the median listed firm is ~24% women. We show the spread, not the rank.
Youth joblessness fell — good news, or fewer looking?
Korea's youth jobless rate fell from 9.8% in 2016 to 6.1% in 2025. A falling rate sounds like good news — but the same number falls whether young people find work or simply stop looking. One rate cannot tell the two apart.
The pay ranking everyone shares hides three things
A ranking of Korea's best-paying employers circulates as one number per company. But a single figure buries the distribution, the gap, and the hours behind it. We report distributions, not averages — here is what it leaves out.
Koreans work fewer days, not shorter days
Korea's monthly work time fell 13% since 2011 — but the working day barely shortened (8.33 to 8.05 hours). The drop is fewer days: 21.2 to 19.1 a month.
Korea sells to and buys from different countries
Korea's export map and import map don't match. Hong Kong is 6.7% of exports but 0.6% of imports; Japan is 7.5% of imports but 3.5% of exports.
Korea's temp workers earn 39% of what regular staff make
A temp or daily worker's monthly pay has held near 40% of a regular employee's since 2011 — 1.74m won against 4.47m in 2025. It has barely moved.
An eighth of Korean pay is bonus — lumped into a few months
Special payments are about 12–15% of a regular worker's yearly pay in Korea — and nearly a third of the year's total lands in December and January alone.
Korean overtime has fallen by nearly a third since 2011
Average monthly overtime for a regular worker dropped from 11.5 hours in 2011 to 8.1 in 2025 — a 30% fall, on Korea's own establishment survey.
Koreans now work 13% fewer hours than in 2011
The average worker's monthly hours fell from 176.6 in 2011 to 153.8 in 2025 — a steady 13% drop, measured on Korea's own establishment survey.
Korea's real wages climbed for a decade, then went flat
Korea's real monthly wage rose ~24% from 2011 to 2021 — then stalled. In the four years since, it is up just 0.2%. The 2020s look nothing like the 2010s.
Korea's youth unemployment has quietly fallen since 2016
Korea's youth (15–29) jobless rate peaked at 9.8% in 2016 and fell to 6.1% by 2025 — about twice the national rate. But a falling rate is not only good news.
Korea's 2026 trade surplus 'tripled.' We don't buy it.
Korea's trade surplus seems to jump 5x in a year. But exports step up 29% in one month while every partner keeps its share — a measurement break, not a boom.
Korea's stock market and trade: the top four are half of everything
How concentrated is the Korean stock market? Rank Korea's stocks, or its export and import partners, and the top four are about half every time — every Gini past 0.9. KOSPI, KOSDAQ and trade, one pattern. Not advice.
Korea's producer prices rose 7.7% — its chip prices tripled
The headline producer price index barely moved. Underneath, chip prices rose 315% and memory 291% in a year while forest and vegetable prices fell 20-35%. The 7.7% average hides a violent split. Not advice.
South Korea's biggest export and import partners: two giants, one supplier
South Korea's biggest trading partners: its top export markets, the US and China, are nearly tied near 20% each, but its single biggest supplier is China alone — a quarter of all imports. Four partners are half the trade. Not advice.
Korea's leading indicator has climbed for a year. Its coincident gauge has barely moved.
Statistics Korea's leading cyclical index rose every month for a year, 100.0 to 105.7, yearly growth doubling to 8.8%. The coincident gauge — the here-and-now — sat flat near 100. The forward signal is loud, the present quiet. Not advice.
Korea's trade surplus comes from a handful of partners — and drains to a different set
Twelve months of customs data: Korea's goods surplus rests on the U.S., Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan, and drains to where it buys energy and parts — Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia. China, the biggest partner, nearly balances. Not advice.
Korea's listed companies cluster in the capital even harder than its workers do
Of 2,364 listed companies that give a location, 85.7% are headquartered in the capital region — Seoul alone holds 46.4%. That is well above the 61.2% of enrolled workers there. The head offices concentrate more than the jobs. Not advice.
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.
Working for a Korean company pays a quarter more than working for an owner
The national pension bills every employer 9% of pay. Incorporated firms are billed 370,340 won per worker, sole proprietorships 280,520 — the 882,490 Koreans working for an individual owner sit a quarter below the 10.7 million at companies.
In Korea, bigger employers pay more — and the pension data shows it rising at every single step.
Sort 554,570 workplaces by headcount and the national-pension bill per worker climbs monotonically: 291,760 won at the smallest firms, 456,315 at the largest. No band breaks the ladder. The size premium is 1.56x.
In one Korean province, workers leave the payroll fastest — and it pays the least.
Each month a share of enrolled workers drops out of workplace pension coverage. On the tourism island of Jeju it is 4.28%; in research-heavy Daejeon, 3.12%. Across regions, higher pay and lower churn move together.
The older an industry's firms, the fewer workers it loses. In Korea the link is strong.
Across 105 industries, average firm age and monthly separation rate move inversely, with a correlation of -0.61. Banks are old and stable; construction is young and churns. Stability, it turns out, has an age.
Korea's oldest workplaces are its banks. Its youngest are building sites and coffee shops.
Measured by years enrolled in the pension system, domestic banks average 33 and credit unions 32. Earthmoving and electrical-wiring contractors average barely two. An industry's age maps how it is built.
Korea's pay map doesn't put Seoul on top. A shipbuilding city does.
Averaged across every enrolled workplace, the national-pension bill is highest in Ulsan, not the capital. Top to bottom, the regional spread is just 1.21x — the smallest of the axes that move Korean pay.
Korea's smallest firms lose workers 1.6x as fast as its largest. The pay ladder runs the other way.
Each month, small workplaces shed 4.29% of their enrolled workers; the biggest shed 2.66%. Hiring falls with size too. The firm that pays the most also holds onto people the longest.
Six in ten formally employed Koreans work in the capital region. It barely pays more.
The Seoul metro area holds 61.2% of enrolled workers on a footprint that pays a 1.21x premium at most — and less than that once the pension ceiling and Seoul's rents are taken into account. The pull isn't the paycheque.
Korea's pension bill sorts 11.6 million workers into a pay ladder. Top to bottom, 2.3 times.
Every employer is billed 9% of a worker's pay for the national pension, up to a ceiling. Rank Korea's 41 biggest industries by that bill per head and imaging-equipment plants sit 2.3 times above employment agencies.
Korea publishes two housing numbers. They routinely disagree, and both are right.
Transaction records say what actually sold. The official index says which way the market moved. In a thin market these diverge — and the gap is the story, not an error in either.
Why the Korean market numbers you can legally read are always a day old
The data this site publishes settles on a one-business-day lag — not by editorial choice but because that is what the redistributable sources release. One exception changes what is possible.