FAIR Newsletter
We select the labor issues arising in Korea that HR teams at foreign-invested companies should know about, and set them out from the perspective of the statute and of day-to-day practice.
- September 2026
Profit-linked bonus demands: the government sets out a bargaining standard
On 3 September 2026 the Ministry of Employment and Labor issued its “Enforcement Guidelines on Management Performance Bonuses and Other Subjects of Labor Disputes.” The Guidelines state that a bonus demand linked at a fixed ratio to company profit — such as revenue, operating profit or net income — is difficult to regard as a mandatory subject of bargaining or a subject of mediation and industrial action. We set out what foreign-invested companies running global compensation plans should check.
Read more - August 2026
A principal contractor can now be required to bargain with a subcontractor’s union
With the amended Trade Union Act effective 10 March 2026, a principal contractor that does not hold the employment contract may still be recognized as an employer under the Act, within the scope of the working conditions it substantially and concretely controls and determines. Here is what global companies using subcontracted or outsourced labor should check now.
Read more - July 2026
Labor issues at foreign-invested companies have become a political agenda
A controversy over personnel measures taken toward an employee returning from parental leave reached a presidential comment, and the Ministry of Employment and Labor has opened an investigation. We set out how the labor practices of foreign-invested companies are assessed in Korea, and what HR should be checking now.
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