SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap) — South Korea ranked second among 36 OECD member countries in terms of the cost of dismissing workers last year, a local think tank said Tuesday.
In 2018, Korean companies shouldered the second-highest burden in dismissing employees, or the equivalent of 27.4 weeks of salary, behind Turkey’s 29.8 weeks of wages, the Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI) said in a statement.
The 36 OECD members paid an average of 14.2 weeks of salary to fire a worker last year, KERI said, citing data from the World Bank’s Doing Business 2019 report.
The Korean labor market needs to lower the costs of labor dismissals to a reasonable level and ease regulations involving layoffs to cope with changes in the job market, the research institute said.
The KERI cited global companies such as General Motors Co., Volkswagen Group and Toyota Motors Corp. which seek to streamline their operations and cut workforces to respond to an economic slowdown and secure future investment resources, it said.
kyongae.choi@yna.co.kr
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