Venture Firms Account for Bigger Share of Workforce

Published on 2020/01/05 | Source

Venture firms in Korea now employ more workers than the country's four major conglomerates.

The number of workers at venture firms rose 5.6 percent from 677,162 in 2017 to 714,971 in 2018, the Ministry of SMEs and Start-ups said on Monday. The ministry conducted a sample survey of 2,052 venture firms out of 36,065.

The figure is larger than the 668,000 workers the country's top four business groups hire combined -- Samsung (250,000), Hyundai (162,000), LG (152,000) and SK (104,000).

Venture firms' combined sales amount to approximately W192 trillion -- below Samsung's W262 trillion but higher than SK's W183 trillion (US$1=W1,157).

They spent an average of W325 million on research and development, with the ratio of R&D spending to revenue being 5.5 percent, compared to 1.5 percent for big conglomerates based on recent data by the Bank of Korea.