The Ministry of Employment and Labor on Thursday announced its policy plans, which are expected to increase labor market flexibility. During the first press briefing held after his inauguration at the government complex in Sejong, President Yoon Suk-yeol‘s first Labor Minister Lee Jung-sik focused on two issues, the country’s 52-hour workweek policy and seniority-based pay models adopted by the majority of companies in South Korea. According to Lee, the government will review opt

Only 14 percent of South Koreans paid for online news content last year, according to a recent report. The proportion of people who said they paid for news content, however, has been gradually increasing over the past years, the report added. According to the 2022 Digital News Report, published by Reuters Institute, the proportion of survey respondents who had paid for online news content in South Korea last year increased by 1 percentage point from the previous year.　 The data, based on a Yo

Police interpreters in South Korea are often underpaid, mistreated and unprotected, prompting many to avoid taking on the role, a local study shows. Police interpreters are individuals who engage with non-native speakers in interpreting in police interviews and courts. The study, written jointly by police officer Choi Seob-min of National Office of Investigation and professor Jeong Ji-su of Korean National Police University, said many police interpreters here have experienced burnout. Acc

The rallies near the homes of President Yoon Suk-yeol and his predecessor, Moon Jae-in, are turning into partisan feuds among people with little regard for residents affected by the demonstrations, with both sides proposing a volley of revisions to amend the demonstration law. Since April this year, a total of seven legislative motions, most of them separately, by the People Power Party and Democratic Party of Korea, have been proposed to revise the demonstration law. But local residents will

Chungjeong Apartment, one of the oldest apartment buildings in South Korea, will be torn down, as part of plans for redevelopment in central Seoul, the Seoul city government said Thursday. The city has looked to redevelop the area for about 40 years, but projects have been put off because of disputes over compensation. With the fate of the building decided, delayed plans for the redevelopment area, which includes part of Seodaemun-gu and Jung-gu, are expected to proceed. The five-story buil

Seo Kyung-duk, a professor at Sungshin Women’s University in Seoul and an expert on Dokdo issues, on Wednesday, said that Dokdo islets were absent from the online maps provided by embassies of major countries. The Dokdo islets are controlled by South Korea but also claimed by Japan. The dispute has been a cause of much tension between Seoul and Tokyo, as well as between the people of the two countries. Seo argued that the countries that have stationed their diplomats in their embassies

Sitting on the rocky volcanic coastline of southern Jeju Island is Branksome Hall Asia, an International Baccalaureate school. The school, Jeju‘s only all International Baccalaureate school, is the first international school in Korea to be named an International School of the Year by ISC Research in 2021. Founded in 2012, Branksome Hall Asia, is a sister school to Branksome Hall, a 119-year-old independent girls school in Toronto, Canada. Like its sister school, the independent boarding

The South Korean government is expected to shorten the country’s COVID-19 quarantine mandate to five days, according to health officials on Tuesday. A government task force has reportedly been discussing the possibility of lifting the mandatory quarantine, but some experts from the group currently see lifting the mandatory quarantine as still risky. At the moment, it is more likely that the government could shorten the quarantine time or just keep the seven-day quarantine measure for a l

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon of the ruling People Power Party met with Gyeonggi Governor Kim Dong-yeon of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea on Monday to discuss cooperation between the two regions. The two leaders of the Greater Seoul area pledged to work together for mutual benefits. Oh and Kim both stressed that their political backgrounds should not matter in dealing with issues related to local residents and introducing policies that can improve quality of life in the area. Oh reque

The government will conduct a large-scale survey on long-term effects of COVID-19 to better understand post-COVID-19 symptoms and their causes, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said Friday. “Many people are experiencing long-term effects of COVID-19, but (the government) responses have not been sufficient,” Han said during a COVID-19 response meeting on Friday. “The government currently plans to conduct a large-scale survey and a systematic review to make a guideline for treating

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said he would bring changes to the Seoul City-run media company Traffic Broadcasting System, which has often been accused of political bias in favor of the Democratic Party of Korea in one of its flagship radio shows. Oh, revealing the plan regarding TBS during an interview with Korean Broadcasting System on Wednesday night, said TBS would focus more on education programs in the future. “People no longer listen to TBS to get traffic information, and that’s

Late-night subway services on additional subway lines were resumed Tuesday amid robust demand for transportation services at night, following the lifting of most social distancing rules. According to Seoul Metro, the operator of the Seoul subway system, the operation hours of Line No. 2, and Line Nos. 5 to 8 are extended by one hour to 1 a.m. on weekdays. The subway operator said that late-night services on all subway lines in Seoul will fully return to the pre-pandemic level by early August

The number of South Koreans living in the capital Seoul is declining sharply, and will continue to drop in the coming decades, according to government data Monday. Seoul’s total population of native South Koreans reached 9.49 million as of May according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, showing an alarming decline. Seoul has been widely known as a city of 10 million residents. The population of Seoul -- both natives and foreigners included -- first surpassed the 10 million ba

South Korea’s daily COVID-19 cases fell to the 5,000s for the first time since Jan. 19, when the country reported 5,804 infections. According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, the country added 5,022 COVID-19 infections during the 24 hours of Sunday. The total caseload reached 18,168,708. The decrease came largely as the number of tests conducted typically dips on the weekend then later rebounds. The extended holiday, which includes Memorial Day on Monday, also contrib

The ruling People Power Party was expected to score a major victory over the main opposition Democratic Party in the local elections Wednesday, taking mayorships in the country’s two largest cities, Seoul and Busan, according to an exit poll released by the country’s three major broadcasters, KBS, MBC and SBS. In Seoul, the People Power Party’s Mayor Oh Se-hoon showed a two-digit gap over the opposition’s Song Young-gil in the exit poll. According to exit polls released

The South Korean government said Monday that it would stop operating clinics for mild COVID-19 cases and introduce a fast-track process for at-risk groups. The government said it has decided to close down all local clinics that have temporarily been used for mild COVID-19 cases due to their low operation rate, as well as to prevent the government’s health expenditures from going to waste. Starting Tuesday, 12 clinics, along with some 3,400 hospital beds, will stop their operations, ac

Kim Tae-heum, the ruling People Power Party’s candidate for the South Chungcheong gubernatorial election, pledged to end the main opposition party’s 12-year reign in South Chungcheong Province. “I will make South Chungcheong Province free of the arrogance, incapability and immorality that the Democratic Party has shown over the last 12 years,” Kim said in an email interview with The Korea Herald. Calling the Democratic Party’s 12-year reign a “failure,&ldquo

Yang Seung-jo, the Democratic Party’s candidate for the South Chungcheong gubernatorial election, said he aims to win a second term in the upcoming local election to complete what he started for the province’s more robust and balanced economic development. “South Chungcheong Province needs a governor with capability and experience for the region’s development without discontinuity,” Yang said, expressing hopes for a second term in an email interview with The Korea

The third session of this year‘s H.eco Forum focused on plastic pollution in the oceans, as well as the ongoing efforts in the private sector to address this issue. In the session, Na Kyung-soo, CEO of SK Geo Centric, stressed the importance of business efforts to counter plastic pollution in the oceans. Na said that measures to counter plastic pollution should be taken immediately worldwide, and businesses should join the efforts. “Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the amo

A group of exchange students at Hanyang University on Wednesday had to face an overtly discriminatory caution sign written in red when they arrived at the university to get tickets for the university’s annual festival. About a hundred foreign exchange students waited in line to get tickets to enter the festival’s main performances, featuring popular celebrities including Psy. However, they were told that they were barred from the “Hanyang Zone,” the area directly faci