Some three-quarters of restaurants say they are experiencing a labor shortage, as young people continue to shun jobs in the service industry while COVID-19 has limited foreign workers from entering the country. According to a report on the labor shortage in the restaurant industry by the Korea Foodservice Industry Research Institute on Monday, 74.9 percent of 207 restaurant owners polled in a September survey said the worker crunch has worsened. Only 4.8 percent said the situation had improved

As artificial intelligence, big data and digital technologies emerge as the forces driving change in many traditional industries, companies that previously did not need many IT workers are hiring tech talent. But digital skills are in such a short supply nationwide there is a war for talent. One company feeling the talent crunch is Ably, a fast-growing online fashion platform that currently consists of more than 200 employees among which some 20 percent are software engineers or developers.

South Korean electronics giant LG Electronics said Sunday that its premium OLED TV lineup had aced recent evaluations conducted by consumer magazines from 14 countries. In particular, the OLED evo introduced this year was recognized for its outstanding performance, earning the best score from consumer outlets in seven European countries, it said. French consumer magazine Que Choisir gave LG’s OLED evo a score of 16.2, the best among the 264 TVs it reviewed. The magazine said the prod

As overseas tourism slowly resumes with travel bubble programs and a rise in vaccination rates, travel to Saipan logged a sharp increase last month, data showed Sunday. According to the Transport Ministry data, passengers going to Saipan from Incheon surged 178.5 percent in October to 3,900 passengers from 1,400 passengers in September. Travel to Saipan also spiked in July when South Korea launched the travel bubble with the country, exempting fully vaccinated people from mandatory quarantin

To ease a nationwide shortage of emissions control fluid for diesel vehicles, the South Korean government is getting hold of a key ingredient needed to make it from the industrial sector, officials said Thursday. In Seoul and major cities across the country, diesel exhaust fluid, without which diesel trucks cannot run, is in short supply, triggering fears for disruptions in cargo delivery. There is due to be a sharp drop in urea imports from China, which supplies more than 60 percent of the

South Korean conglomerates managed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9.3 percent over the past two years, according to a report on Wednesday, suggesting they face a tough task in meeting the government’s 2050 carbon neutrality target. CEO Score, a corporate tracker based in Seoul, said major companies in the country curbed more than 46 million tons of greenhouse gas output in 2020, compared to 2018 figures. The calculation is based on emissions data from 197 companies in South Kore

South Korean major game developer NCSoft has global ambitions for its new massively multiplayer online role playing game Lineage W, set for launch Thursday at midnight. Lineage W will first be available in 12 languages for users in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. NCSoft then plans to expand its service to North America, Europe and South America. Instead of operating separate servers for each country, NCSoft has created the Global One Build service that allows

Artificial intelligence may hold the key to many of the world’s pressing issues such as climate change, said Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam on Monday. Speaking at an annual AI forum, hosted by his company, the senior executive stressed the wide-reaching capability of AI, not just for businesses, but for the betterment of humankind. “The advancement of AI is going beyond the electronics industry and expanding to various fields, such as basic science. We expect AI to

Step-by-step, in line with the government’s plan to gradually return to normalcy with its “living with COVID-19” scheme, the airline industry has begun preparations for more overseas flights. According to full service carriers Korean Air and Asiana Airlines, some overseas flight routes will resume operations next month. Korean Air has decided to resume scheduled flights to Hawaii, Sydney, and Oakland. There will be three flights a week scheduled for Hawaii starting from Nov

Big companies account for just 0.1 percent of all businesses in South Korea, but they generate 51.3 percent of total output, a report showed Thursday. According to data from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, 99.9 percent of domestic enterprises were small and medium sized ones, employing 82.7 percent of the country’s total employed population as of 2019. Compared to a year earlier, the number of SMEs rose 3.8 percent to 6.89 million. The number of employees in SMEs increased by 2 per

Kakao Games Corp. said Thursday its two co-CEOs will assume regional responsibilities as it pushes to expand its foothold in major markets overseas. Namkoong Whon, who currently oversees the company’s management and development as well as new business projects, will now also be representing Kakao Games’ North America and Europe studio, the firm said. Fellow CEO Cho Kye-hyun will be directing business in Asia on top of his existing responsibilities on the company’s publishin

Public Wi-Fi provided in intra-city buses will be getting four times faster as it will be upgraded to 5G network service from the current LTE. Starting with 100 pilot buses, which started boasting faster connections on Wednesday, 29,000 buses nationwide will have 5G connections by 2023, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT. The speed of Wi-Fi currently available on public buses has a maximum speed of 100Mbps as it relies on LTE networks. It will increase to 400Mbps with the rollout of

Database replication solution companies DataStreams and Arkdata announced Monday they agreed to cooperate on big data. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding on exchanging technologies to enhance data replication and create a joint business model to expand into the market. DataStreams has a change data capture, or CDC, solution, which can merge data real-time through its transaction system and sends changes recorded in the source database to the target database. Arkdata was t

The Coca-Cola Company on Monday released its first label-free plastic bottles in South Korea. The company has removed the plastic label to increase recycling efficiency and adapt to the nonlabel trend in the industry to protect the environment. According to the company, they implemented a contour crafting design on Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero plastic bottles. The history of the design goes all the way back to 1915, when the company patented the bottle designed with the curved shape and flow

South Korea’s coal briquette consumption is likely to drop below 500,000 tons for the first time this year on lower demand and higher coal prices. According to the Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corp. on Sunday, domestic coal briquette consumption fell to 508,000 tons last year, a 21 percent drop on-year. The consumption of coal briquettes has been continuously falling since 2014. The number dropped from 1.9 million tons in 2013 to 1.6 million tons in 2014. The biggest

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s leading maker of smartphones and memory chips, was ranked fifth among the world’s top 100 corporate brands for the second year in a row, according to a consulting firm Thursday. The brand value of South Korea’s IT giant was estimated at $74.6 billion this year, increasing 20 percent from $62.3 billion last year, according to the list of 100 Best Global Brands announced by US-based Interbrand. This is the highest gain observed since 2013 an

Merck, the German science and technology group, on Thursday celebrated the fifth anniversary of its M Lab Collaboration Center in Songdo, Incheon. The M Lab Collaboration Center is a research facility established to support local pharmaceutical and bio industry experts with hands-on and virtual training. “Since its establishment in 2016, our Songdo M Lab Collaboration Center has supported more than 100 biopharmaceutical and biotech customers including Samsung Biologics, Celltrion and SK

“A History of the Korean Ginseng Industry,” a book that unravels the history of Korean ginseng from an industrial perspective, has been published in English. According to Korea Ginseng Corp., the publisher of the book, it is an English version of the original that was written in Korean and published in 2019, with updates to reflect changes over the past years. Different from the Korean version that comes in two volumes, the English one is one volume divided into seven parts. It

Samsung SDS, an IT solution provider affiliated with Samsung Group, has rolled out a one-stop freight shipping solution for local exporters. Dubbed Cello Square 4.0, the platform is designed to provide a one-stop solution for freight shipping to small and medium-sized companies that experience difficulty keeping up with complex export and import procedures, as well as to track the cargo’s delivery status. Utilizing the latest digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, the in

The used phone upcycling program of Samsung Electronics has been chosen as an exemplary case of responsible business management. According to the mobile industry on Monday, the South Korean tech giant’s “Galaxy Upcycling at Home” program received the circular transition award at this year’s Reuters Responsible Business Awards. The award is an annual event that has been taking place since 2009 to acknowledge excellent sustainability business strategies. Samsung Electron