42% of Small and Medium Enterprises Pay 'Seol Bonus'... 609,000 Won Per Person

Among 10 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 4 are expected to pay Lunar New Year bonuses.

Visitors are examining dried yellow corvina gift sets at the Lunar New Year gift exhibition held at COEX on the 13th of last month. Photo by Heo Younghan younghan@

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The Korea Federation of SMEs announced the results of the "2024 SME Lunar New Year Fund Demand Survey" conducted from the 8th to the 16th among 811 SMEs on the 28th.

41.8% of SMEs responded that they plan to pay Lunar New Year bonuses this year. 25.2% of companies had not yet decided.

The bonus payment level was confirmed to be an average of 609,000 KRW per person for fixed amount payments. Considering that the average Lunar New Year bonus last year was 400,000 KRW, this is an increase of 209,000 KRW. For fixed-rate payments, it was found that an average of 60.3% of the base salary would be paid.

Regarding Lunar New Year holiday plans, 94.7% of companies responded that they would only take holidays during the Lunar New Year public holidays (9th to 12th). 5.3% of companies planned additional holidays beyond the public holidays, with an average of 1.3 additional days off.

Regarding the financial situation for Lunar New Year funds, 26.6% responded that it was "difficult" compared to last year. 17.3% said it was "smooth," and 56.1% said it was "no different from last year." The main reasons for financial difficulties (multiple responses allowed) were "poor sales and revenue" (65.7%) ranked first, followed by "rising raw material prices" (52.3%), "increased labor costs" (32.4%), and "delayed collection of sales proceeds" (10.2%).

Compared to last year, 19.5% responded that the conditions for raising funds through financial institutions were "smooth." The response "no different from last year" (68.9%) was higher than "difficult" (11.6%). The biggest difficulties when raising funds from banks (multiple responses allowed) were "high loan interest rates" (31.3%). Other issues included "financial statement-based screening focusing on sales" (8.4%), "insufficient loan limits" (7.6%), and "excessive document submission requirements" (7.0%).

SMEs estimated that they need an average of 238.9 million KRW for Lunar New Year funds this year. The average shortfall compared to the required funds was 19.4 million KRW. Regarding plans to secure the insufficient Lunar New Year funds (multiple responses allowed), responses were "early collection of delivery payments" (35.4%), "payment deferral" (30.4%), and "borrowing from financial institutions" (17.7%). 31.6% also responded that they had "no countermeasures."

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