If an employee has not been paid due wages, they can appeal to the state for restitution, but data showed Friday that over 7,000 employees working for government-affiliated organizations were not paid their wages on time.
A total of 15.16 billion won ($10.9 million) in wages was not paid in time in 2024 to 7,280 employees working at organizations run or affiliated with the South Korean government, according to a report from People Power Party Rep. Kim Ui-sang based on data from the Ministry of Employment and Labor. This averages 2.08 million won per person.
Last year's figure is unusually high. The annual number had hovered below 1 billion won since 2020, with the exception of 1.57 billion won in 2021.
This year's figure was 299.2 million won as of May.
Most of the unpaid wages last year occurred for those working at the Korea Expressway Service, after 5,811 employees were not paid 12.76 billion won due to belated labor deals in 2023. All the employees of the company have since been paid their due wages.
Despite the rise in unpaid wages in the public sector, the figure was dwarfed by that of the private sector, which came to 2.04 trillion won in 2024, up 14.6 percent from 1.78 trillion won the previous year. It was the first time that unpaid wages throughout the country within a year surpassed the threshold of 2 trillion won.
Dayou Winia Group, which saw several of its subsidiaries file for bankruptcy, failed to pay 119.7 billion won to 2,087 employees. E-commerce company Qoo10 Group also underwent financial issues and failed to pay wages to 1,284 employees, totaling 32 billion won last year.
The Labor Ministry plans to launch a pangovernmental response against unpaid wages to workers as early as next week, which is expected to include harsher punitive actions for employers and expanding the government's advance payment for the workers. The government plans to reduce unpaid wages by at least 15 percent each year, intent to bring down the figure to below 1 trillion won by 2030.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
