Hyundai Motor Labor and Management, Dongchaeimong... Power Struggle Over Future Vehicle Workforce Structure

Labor-Management Disagreement Over Hyundai Motor Union Strategy Briefing
30% of Hyundai Motor Production Workforce to Retire by 2025
Union: "Retiring Workers Must Be Replaced" vs. Management: "No Additional Hiring"
Experts: "Labor Flexibility Needed to Keep Up with 4th Industrial Revolution"

[Asia Economy Reporter Suyeon Woo] Hyundai Motor Company’s labor and management are engaged in a power struggle over workforce restructuring in preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. Since the new union leadership took office, the company and the union have presented different interpretations of the blueprint introduced at the vision briefing. Hyundai Motor has declared its intention to actively reduce the proportion of internal combustion engines after 2030, while the union strongly opposes this, accusing the company of misleading the public about the collapse of the internal combustion engine market as a pretext for cutting labor costs.

On the 22nd, Hyundai Motor held a '2025 Strategy Briefing' for union members at the Ulsan plant. At this event, Park Hong-jae, head of Hyundai Motor’s Corporate Strategy Division, made remarks indicating an increase in the proportion of electrified vehicles in new cars starting from 2030. This suggests that from 2030 onwards, there will be no new cars released with only internal combustion engine lines. He also mentioned that the paradigm shift in the automotive industry over the next decade?driven by personal aerial vehicles (PAV), car sharing, and eco-friendly vehicles?will rapidly change the workforce structure landscape.

The union is interpreting Vice President Park’s remarks as a strong indication that internal combustion engine production will cease around 2030. The union accuses management of misleading the public into believing that the internal combustion engine system will collapse immediately, and warns that this will be used as an excuse to force union members to make concessions such as workforce redeployment, labor cost reductions, and flexible job transitions.

Last August, Hyundai Motor Company labor and management sat down together to discuss wage and collective agreement negotiations.

Why is there such a difference in interpretation regarding the briefing attended by both labor and management? It is likely because they have different perspectives on the upcoming era of future vehicles. Both the union and management agree that transitioning to an eco-friendly vehicle system will inevitably reduce employment on production lines.

Last year, Hyundai Motor’s labor and management launched a job security council for the first time in the company’s history to discuss employment in the automotive industry amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At this council, a scenario was presented that production workforce should be reduced by 20-40% by 2025. The natural attrition due to retirements by 2025 is expected to exceed 14,000 workers, about 30% of the current production workforce.

While the union insists that the workforce lost due to retirements should be replenished, Hyundai Motor maintains its position of not hiring additional personnel. Knowing this stance, the union reacts sensitively to even minor employment issues and tends to interpret them expansively.

Experts advise that the scope of employment in the future automotive industry needs to be newly defined. From a manufacturing perspective, employment may decrease as production workers on internal combustion engine lines decline, but if the industry scope expands to include electric vehicle battery manufacturing, car sharing, autonomous driving services, and other mobility service sectors, related jobs could actually increase.

However, as the union has done so far, if it refuses redeployment or retraining and demands unilateral job preservation, it will be difficult to continue working together. Lee Hang-gu, a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade, pointed out, "The future vehicle industry, including autonomous driving and the sharing economy, can generate tremendous employment effects in the service sector. However, it is difficult with the current manufacturing-based workforce, so the union must also actively secure labor flexibility to respond to the creation of new job demands."

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