Last Year Corporate Net Profit Decreased by 4 Trillion to 98 Trillion... Number of Employees Increased by 1% to 4.71 Million

Statistics Korea Announces Results of 2020 Business Activity Survey

Scenic view of Sihwa National Industrial Complex. (Photo by Asia Economy DB)

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Last year, the pre-tax net profit of domestic companies decreased by 4 trillion won from the previous year, amounting to 98 trillion won.

On the 23rd, Statistics Korea announced the results of the 2020 Corporate Activities Survey containing this information. This is a provisional tally of the '2020 Corporate Activities Survey' conducted last June, targeting 13,429 domestic corporate entities with '50 or more regular employees and capital of 300 million won or more.'

According to this, the number of domestic companies subject to the corporate activities survey was 13,429, an increase of 1.3% compared to the previous year (13,255). The number of employees was 4.71 million, up 1.1% from 4.66 million the previous year.

Total sales (excluding financial and insurance industries) amounted to 2,360 trillion won, a decrease of 3.2% compared to the previous year (2,440 trillion won). Pre-tax net profit was 98 trillion won, down 3.9% from 102 trillion won the previous year. Accordingly, the pre-tax net profit earned per 1,000 won of sales was 41.4 won, a decrease of 0.3 won from 41.7 won the previous year.

Among the surveyed companies, 5,823 had subsidiaries. Of these, 3,313 companies had overseas subsidiaries, an increase of 2.0% compared to 3,247 the previous year. Overseas subsidiaries were mainly established in China (26.9%), followed by the United States (13.8%) and Vietnam (12%).

Research and development expenses (excluding financial and insurance industries) amounted to 63.7 trillion won, an increase of 5.9% compared to 60.1 trillion won the previous year. The number of companies utilizing external outsourcing was 9,737, up 2.2% from 9,527 the previous year. By sector, the outsourcing rates were highest in security, cleaning, and facility management (22.9%), production (18.1%), and transportation and delivery services (17.3%).

Among the surveyed companies, 1,773 were found to be developing and utilizing technologies related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This is a 3.6% increase from 1,711 the previous year. It was mainly found that they utilized cloud computing (23.1%), big data (19.1%), artificial intelligence (13.4%), and the Internet of Things (13.3%).

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