KCCI: "65% of Companies Expect Labor-Management Relations to Worsen This Year Compared to Last Year"

[Asia Economy Reporter Su-yeon Woo] This year, corporate labor-management relations are expected to become more unstable compared to last year.

The Korea Employers Federation announced the results of the '2020 Labor-Management Relations Outlook Survey' on the 7th. According to the survey, 64.8% of the 180 respondent companies anticipated that labor-management relations in 2020 would be more unstable than in 2019.

When asked about the factors causing labor-management instability this year, the response 'The 21st General Election and pro-labor legislative environment' was the highest at 33.3%.

Following that, economic slowdown and poor corporate performance outlook (25.9%), expansion of operational cost support due to the Constitutional Court's unconstitutionality ruling, wage peak system, illegal dispatch, and other increasing labor issues within companies (21.1%) were identified as the three major instability factors.

The Korea Employers Federation stated, "The fact that the 21st General Election and pro-labor legislative environment emerged as the biggest instability factors in labor-management relations this year reflects concerns about the promotion of labor-friendly legislation and external intervention in individual corporate labor-management relations."

KCCI 2020 Labor-Management Relations Outlook Survey

Regarding the 2020 wage increase outlook, the response 'around 2%' was the highest. This is about half the collective agreement wage increase rate (4.0%) as of November 2019. The Korea Employers Federation explained, "This result reflects last year's deteriorated corporate performance and the uncertain economic outlook for 2020."

The collective agreement wage increase rate refers to the predetermined wage increase rate based on wages agreed upon by labor and management when deciding the wage increase rate (excluding wages determined retrospectively such as overtime, night, and holiday work allowances).

Major issues in collective bargaining aside from wages included expansion of welfare benefits (35.5%), workforce increase (17.9%), and reduction of working hours and introduction of flexible work systems (13.7%).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.