SMEs Call for Minimum Wage Freeze for Next Year

Published on 2018/05/06 | Source

Half of small and medium-sized businesses want to freeze the minimum wage for next year.

The minimum wage increased by 16.4 percent this year, which worsened the business environment for SMEs.

The Korea Federation of SMEs carried out a poll on 1,650 businesses in Korea recently and found out that some 48.2 percent wanted the minimum wage to remain the same for next year. In the same survey last year, the figure was 36.3 percent.

Some 73.9 percent of SMEs responded that they are experiencing difficulties due to the sharp increase in the minimum wage. The impact was severe, particularly for the service sector, and effects were harsher for smaller businesses compared to bigger ones.