Korea Leads in Lost Work Days: Study

A new research report came up with results that labor-management relations in Korea turned out to be much more conflictive than that of advanced countries such as Japan or Germany. This is because the number of lost work days due to strikes was far higher than advanced countries.

In a report titled “Characteristics and Recent Changes of Labor-Management Relations in Advanced Countries” released by the Institute for Monetary and Economic Research (IMER), a think tank within the Bank of Korea, the annual average of lost work days per 1,000 workers regarding all domestic industries during the decade between 1992 and 2001 totaled 93.5.

In the same period, other developed countries marked far less lost work days as Japan recorded two, Germany recorded nine, Great Britain recorded 21, Sweden recorded 30 and the USA recorded 48. Lost work days per 1000 workers is an indicator that shows the degree of economic loss due to labor disputes in a certain country. It is calculated by multiplying the days of strikes in a year by the number of concerned laborers, and then dividing it with the number of paid workers in the country and finally multiplying this by 1000.

jinhup@donga.com