72,000 Manufacturing Jobs Disappeared THIS PAST YEAR
20 April, 2021
Around 72,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in 2020 as factories packed up and headed abroad to the stage where overseas investment by Korean companies surpassed foreign investment here.
The Korea Economic Research Institute compared the quantity of jobs which were created here due to foreign direct investment and the ones which were lost to overseas investment by Korean companies.
The top three industries that saw a net outflow of money last year were semiconductors with W2.5 trillion, electrical equipment with W2.2 trillion and cars with W1.8 trillion (US$1=W1,115).
As a result, 15,500 jobs were lost in electrical equipment manufacturing, 14,500 in the auto industry and 4,900 in semiconductors.
The web outflow of investment in the manufacturing sector has averaged W7.5 trillion annually since 2011, leading to around 49,000 jobs disappearing each year.
Korean businesses eye overseas markets to tap new demand but are also lured there by cheap labor and less rigid labor regulations.
Choo Kwang-ho at KERI said, "Domestic businesses haven't any choice but to relocate their factories abroad, but we also need to understand why FDI is falling behind. The federal government must ease regulations so that foreign businesses will be enticed to purchase Korea."
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