Number of businesses in Korea up 2% in 2016

The number of companies doing business in South Korea rose slightly in 2016 from a year earlier amid a protracted economic slump, government data showed Thursday.

There were 3.95 million businesses last year, up 2 percent, or 78,000, from 2015, according to the data from Statistics Korea.

They employed a combined 21.33 million workers in 2016, up 2.1 percent on-year.
 

(Yonhap)

Over the 10-year period from 2006, the number of companies jumped 22.5 percent and that of employees increased 38.2 percent.

The wholesale and retail sector had the largest number of companies with 1 million, followed by 729,000 restaurants and hotels and 416,000 manufacturing firms.

In terms of employment, however, the manufacturing industry had 4 million workers, accounting for nearly a fifth of total employees, while 3.2 million workers were engaged in the wholesale and retail business and 2.2 million people were working in the accommodation field. (Yonhap)