Top 10 Companies Not Adding Many Jobs

The nation’s top 10 conglomerates have not contributed much to job creation since the start of the administration. In particular, other seven conglomerates beside the top three conglomerates Samsung, LG, Hyundai Kia Automotive Group have shown a very poor performance in generating new jobs. Experts believe corporate restructuring is one of the causes of the lackluster job creation.

According to 2002-2005 business and audit reports of 249 affiliates of the top 10 conglomerates based on the combined assets as of Sunday, the total number of employees in these companies rose from 459,000 to 535,200, up 76,200, between the end of 2002 and the end of 2005.

In other words, it can be said, for the past three years, an average of 25,400 new jobs were created each year and each affiliated company of the 10 conglomerates contributed merely 102 new jobs a year.

The top three conglomerates hired 74,809 more employees while the other seven conglomerates hired only 1,391 more employees.

Samsung Group increased the most number of employees, with an increase of 46,000 employees (37.8 percent) since 2003. Samsung Electronics and Samsung Electro-Mechanics accounted for 80 percent of the group’s total employment growth with 32,200 and 3,700 new jobs, respectively.

Meanwhile, LG Group also increased the number of employees to 79,809, up 18,809 (30 percent), while the Hyundai Kia Group increased the number of employees from 104,800 to 114,800, up 10,000 (9.7 percent) compared to three years ago.

The number of jobs climbed meagerly in the other conglomerates.

The number of employees in SK Group was increased only by 1,800 for the three years, due to the SK Global crisis and restructuring of SKC. The numbers of employees in Lotte Group and GS Group were also increased merely 2,100 and 1,300, respectively.

The numbers of employees at top seven to ten conglomerates were rather decreased by 3,000. Hyundai Heavy Industries Group saw a decrease in the number of workers by some 1,000 and Doosan Group also saw a decrease in the number of workers due to a massive early retirement plan at Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction in 2003.

Hanwha Group has also cut its employees due to the reduction in the number of employees at Korea Life Insurance.

sublime@donga.com