Hanwha Group moves to bring aerospace under its defense arm SEOUL, May 07 (AJP) - Defense-heavy Hanwha Group has climbed to No. 5 in South Korea’s latest conglomerate rankings by the Fair Trade Commission, and it appears to be aiming to go literally higher by bringing aircraft and rocket manufacturing business back into the family. The group has recently secured more than a 5 percent stake in Korea Aerospace Industries, the country's aircraft-making monopoly, for the stated purpose of “management participation,” signaling that its long-rumored ambition to build a “Korean Lockheed Martin” is moving into clearer view. Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Systems recently purchased additional KAI shares on the open market, raising their combined stake to 5.09 percent. The group is reportedly planning to invest an additional 500 billion won ($345 million) by the end of this year to lift its holdings further to 6.43 percent. The move marks Hanwha’s return to possible management involvement in KAI roughly eight years after it sold its entire stake in 2018 to improve its financial structure. Hanwha had quietly re-entered KAI’s shareholder base in March with a 4.99 percent stake, deliberately stopping just below the disclosure threshold that would have triggered stricter reporting requirements and intensified takeover speculation. By crossing the 5 percent threshold, Hanwha has effectively shown its hand and will to bring KAI back home to complete its broader aerospace and defense ambitions. KAI is de facto state-owned with the Export-Import Bank of Korea holding the largest 26.41 percent stake, followed by the National Pension Service with roughly 8 percent. Hanwha would become the largest non-public shareholder in KAI once stake purchase is completed. Hanwha itself has openly acknowledged the possibility of pursuing a larger role. “If discussions on a government-led privatization of KAI become public, we plan to review whether to pursue an acquisition or integration in line with the government’s policy direction,” the group said. Hanwha’s ties with KAI date back to 2015, when it acquired Samsung Techwin, now Hanwha Aerospace, and inherited Samsung Group’s roughly 10 percent stake in KAI. But the group sold the entire holding in 2018 as part of efforts to shore up its balance sheet. Speculation over a renewed KAI bid intensified after Hanwha acquired Hanwha Ocean, formerly Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, in 2023, strengthening its ambition to build an integrated defense structure spanning land, sea, air and space. Since then, Hanwha has repeatedly emerged as the leading candidate whenever discussions resurfaced over the possible sale of the Export-Import Bank’s KAI stake. Industry watchers also point to significant technological synergies. Hanwha Aerospace has strengths in fighter jet engines and space launch vehicles, while KAI specializes in aircraft manufacturing, satellite platforms and systems integration. A combination of the two could create South Korea’s first vertically integrated aerospace champion with the scale to compete more directly against global defense giants such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing. “Hanwha’s grand ambition is ultimately to create Korea’s Lockheed Martin,” said Kim Houng-yu. “KAI could become a key pillar in completing that vision.” The push is also viewed as a strategic investment in the emerging “new space” economy, where private companies are taking increasingly central roles in satellite development, launch systems and defense-related aerospace technologies. Still, major obstacles remain before any actual takeover could materialize. The most immediate issue is likely to be monopoly scrutiny. If Hanwha acquires KAI, the group would effectively control both fighter aircraft manufacturing and engine supply, a structure that could face close examination from the Fair Trade Commission. Concerns over privatizing a strategically sensitive defense company, potential clashes in corporate culture and labor union opposition are also viewed as major hurdles. “Defense is a special market, unlike ordinary industries, so the government could play some role in adjusting monopoly-related concerns,” Kim said. “Conditions could be attached during the acquisition process.” Another defense industry expert argued that the emergence of a Korean version of Lockheed Martin could ultimately strengthen South Korea’s global competitiveness. “South Korea still does not have a comprehensive defense company that covers everything from ground weapons and missiles to advanced weapons systems and aircraft platforms,” the expert said. “Rather than looking only at domestic competition, it could be positive to have a defense-specialized group like Korea’s Lockheed Martin when considering global competitiveness.” Hanwha’s latest stake expansion also reflects how Chairman Kim Seung-youn’s aggressive mergers, acquisitions and restructuring efforts are increasingly translating into stronger profitability rather than simply a larger corporate footprint. According to the Financial Supervisory Service, Hanwha Corp. posted 189.5 billion won in first-quarter operating profit on a standalone basis, up 24.8 percent from a year earlier, driven by improved operational efficiency and dividend income from key affiliates. Core defense affiliates also posted strong results. Hanwha Aerospace and Hanwha Ocean recorded first-quarter operating profit increases of 20.6 percent and 70.6 percent, respectively, as exports of K9 self-propelled howitzers and Chunmoo multiple rocket launch systems expanded amid rising global defense demand following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ongoing instability in the Middle East. Buoyed by growing confidence on land and at sea, Hanwha is now looking higher – toward aerospace. 2026-05-07 17:59:48

Singles' childbirth intentions rise above 40% in South Korea SEOUL, May 7 (AJP) - Four out of 10 South Korean adults viewed having children positively, a recent survey showed, adding to signs of a gradual demographic rebound in a country long plagued by the world's lowest birth rate. The fifth nationwide survey on perceptions of marriage, childbirth and parenting, conducted by the Presidential Committee on Ageing Society and Population Policy (PCASPP), found increasingly positive attitudes toward family formation among adults aged 25 to 49. The survey, conducted twice a year using the same questionnaire for 2,800 respondents, showed that 76.4 percent viewed marriage positively, continuing an upward trend since the first survey in 2024. Among unmarried respondents, positive perceptions of marriage rose to 65.7 percent, up from 55.9 percent two years earlier. Willingness to marry also increased by 6.4 percentage points to 67.4 percent. Attitudes toward having children likewise improved, with 71.6 percent of respondents saying children are necessary, up 10.5 percentage points from the first survey. Among respondents without children, willingness to have children rose to 41.8 percent from 32.6 percent. The committee highlighted the particularly sharp shift among unmarried adults, noting that both perceptions about the importance of having children and willingness to become parents increased by more than 10 percentage points over the past two years. The survey also indicated that economic pressures and workplace culture remain major barriers to marriage and child-rearing. When asked what was most important in addressing the country's low birthrate, 83.9 percent of respondents cited the need for stable, well-paying jobs. Dual-income households said the most urgent need was a workplace culture that supports employees in using childcare benefits, along with broader access to institutional childcare services and guaranteed care hours, including extended daycare and expanded after-school programs. Respondents also emphasized the need for greater flexibility in balancing work and family responsibilities. Support for flexible working arrangements was particularly strong among women, at 68.6 percent, compared with 53.1 percent among men. Participants also called for expanded financial support for married couples and families with children, with 51.3 percent favoring broader tax benefits. Support was higher among men at 56.5 percent, compared with 45.8 percent among women. On housing policy, lowering income thresholds for government-backed home purchase loans and lump-sum rental deposit loan programs was the most commonly cited measure, supported by 45.3 percent of respondents. The survey also found generally high satisfaction with childcare services, with more than 80 percent of respondents expressing positive views. Families with infants and toddlers prioritized longer childcare hours, while households with elementary school children placed greater emphasis on improving program quality. 2026-05-07 17:57:06

Proposal to amend constitution fails to be put to vote amid PPP boycott SEOUL, May 7 (AJP) - A proposed bill to partially amend the constitution, led by the ruling Democratic Party (DP), stalled at the National Assembly in Seoul on Thursday after the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) boycotted a parliamentary vote, leaving it short of the quorum required to proceed with only 178 lawmakers taking part. National Assembly speaker Woo Won-shik and DP lawmakers vowed to reconvene another plenary session on Friday to put the bill back to a vote. The proposed amendment seeks to include key democratic movements and struggles in South Korea's history including the May 1980 Gwangju uprising, in the constitution's preamble to reaffirm democratic values following disgraced former President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched martial law debacle in December 2024. It would also require a president to obtain National Assembly approval within 48 hours of declaring martial law. If approval is not secured within 48 hours, or if the National Assembly votes to lift martial law, the declaration would immediately lose effect, to prevent a repeat of incidents like Yoon's short-lived, overnight bid. The proposal also includes provisions to promote balanced regional development. The PPP, however, has opposed the amendment, calling for more deliberation rather than rushing it through ahead of local elections slated for early next month. To pass, it requires approval from at least two-thirds of all lawmakers. If all 106 PPP lawmakers are absent, the vote cannot be valid. To put it to a national referendum alongside the June 3 local elections, the proposal must clear the National Assembly by no later than May 10. 2026-05-07 17:48:55

KF-21 cleared for combat, opening era of Korean-made fighter jets SEOUL, May 07 (AJP) - South Korea’s homegrown KF-21 fighter jet has received final combat suitability approval, clearing the last major hurdle in its development 10 years and five months after the project began. The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said Thursday that the KF-21 was declared suitable for combat use, meaning the aircraft has met the Air Force’s required operational capability and secured the technical reliability needed to carry out missions in actual battlefield conditions. The KF-21 development project began in December 2015. Since testing and evaluation began in May 2021, the aircraft has undergone about five years of ground tests through February this year to verify its durability and structural integrity. The aircraft also completed more than 1,600 flight tests, covering over 13,000 test conditions, including aerial refueling and weapons launch trials. Through the tests, authorities verified the KF-21’s flight performance and stability. With the latest approval, the project is expected to be formally completed next month. The first mass-produced unit is scheduled to be delivered to the Air Force in the second half of this year. The KF-21 will replace the Air Force’s aging F-4 and F-5 fighter jets, marking a major step in South Korea’s efforts to build an independent fighter aircraft development capability. “This combat suitability approval is the result of close cooperation among the Defense Ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Air Force, Korea Aerospace Industries and other related organizations,” said Noh Ji-man, head of DAPA’s Korean Fighter Program Office. “It is a symbolic achievement showing that South Korea has fully secured its own fighter jet development capability,” he added. However, some officials say the deployment timeline could still be subject to change as pressure grows on the defense budget. 2026-05-07 17:43:12

Gyeonggi fire services demonstrates unmanned firefighting robot 'FIRO' YONGIN, May 07 (AJP) - The Gyeonggi Fire Service's headquarters has conducted a demonstration of an unmanned firefighting robot called 'FIRO' at the Gyeonggi Fire Service Academy's live fire training facility in Yongin, south of Seoul, on Wednesday. The demonstration event included remote driving, water spraying, and search & rescue operations. According to the emergency headquarters, the unmanned firefighting robot will be deployed in dangerous environments involving buildings vulnerable to collapse, hard-to-reach areas, and areas exposed to high temperatures, explosions, toxic gases, and other hazards. 2026-05-07 17:34:00

KOSPI hits new heights and ordinary Koreans can only watch in envy SEOUL, May 07 (AJP) - South Korea’s benchmark stock index keeps scaling one record after another, but for many ordinary investors the rally feels increasingly like a private party they cannot afford to enter. After surging 70 percent last year, the KOSPI has already climbed another 77 percent this year, propelled overwhelmingly by a handful of AI-fueled chip giants. The gains have become so concentrated that while paper wealth has exploded, many retail investors holding smaller stocks say they have been left poorer — or locked out entirely by soaring share prices. A research report released Thursday by the Bank of Korea warned that the stock boom is increasingly enriching wealthy households and deepening Korea’s already severe asset polarization, long driven by widening real estate disparities. Individual investors purchased a net 63.6 trillion won ($43.8 billion) worth of stocks between 2020 and 2024, sharply up from just 1.3 trillion won during 2011 - 2019. Yet the gains accrued overwhelmingly to high-income households. The wealthiest 20 percent of households by net assets accounted for 64.5 percent of all stock holdings, the central bank said. When measured by total assets — including real estate, equities and cash — the concentration became even starker, with the top quintile controlling 73.2 percent of household wealth. The return gap was wider still. Between 2020 and 2024, the richest 20 percent earned average annual stock profits of 2 million won, far above the national average of 1.12 million won. For the remaining income quintiles, annual stock-related income remained below 400,000 won. The imbalance has likely intensified further in recent months as shares of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix exploded higher on the back of the artificial intelligence boom. As of Thursday, Samsung Electronics carried a market capitalization of 1,567 trillion won, while SK hynix stood at 1,175 trillion won. Together, the two companies accounted for more than 45 percent of the KOSPI’s total market value of 6,062 trillion won, up sharply from 34 percent at the end of last year. Their share prices have more than doubled this year, with Samsung Electronics climbing above 260,000 won and SK hynix topping 1.6 million won. Of the KOSPI’s roughly 1,000 trillion won increase in market capitalization this year, about 800 trillion won came from the two chipmakers alone. Outside the AI frenzy, however, much of the market continued to follow a sharply “K-shaped” trajectory, with many non-chip stocks declining even as headline indices surged. “I wanted to invest in the two major stocks, but the share prices were already too high, so I bought other stocks that ended up falling instead,” said Park Min-woo, who described himself as belonging to the second or third income quintile. “The barrier to entry for the core stocks has become too high.” Among the top 20 KOSPI-listed companies by market capitalization, only Shinhan Financial Group traded below 100,000 won per share. The rally has also fueled a fresh wave of leveraged speculation. Margin loan balances, which stood at around 16 trillion won at the end of 2024, surpassed 27 trillion won by the end of 2025 and reached 36 trillion won as of Monday. Analysts said the trend reflects both speculative fervor and the growing difficulty retail investors face in accessing the market’s biggest winners. “We must keep in mind that leveraged investments, such as credit loans, are increasing,” a BOK official said. “A simultaneous decline in asset prices and increase in debt burdens could amplify downward pressure on the economy.” As wealth polarization deepens, consumer spending has weakened while dependence on asset accumulation — particularly real estate — has intensified. According to the BOK survey, Korean households spent just 130 won for every 10,000 won earned through stock investments, far below comparable figures of 3.2 percent in the United States and 3.8 percent in Germany. The central bank pointed to property markets as a key driver of the disparity. The share of proceeds from stock and bond sales used for home purchases rose from 4.9 percent in May last year to 8.9 percent in January this year. During the same period, apartment prices in Seoul climbed about 8.7 percent. The trend runs counter to the government’s longstanding hope that rising stock prices would ease speculative pressure on housing. According to the KB Financial Group Research Institute, stock-market profits are increasingly flowing back into real estate, particularly among wealthy investors. The institute pointed to a steady migration of equity wealth into premium residential districts across Seoul and the surrounding metropolitan area. “It is not a new phenomenon for stock market liquidity to move into real estate with a certain time lag,” said Song Seung-hyeon, head of City and Economy. Song warned that as wealthy investors armed with large amounts of “seed money” continue pouring into the housing market, property prices in Seoul and the greater metropolitan area are likely to climb further, widening the asset divide. For decades, the stock market was viewed as a pathway for lower-income households to build wealth and improve living standards. In today’s market, that ladder appears increasingly difficult to climb. 2026-05-07 17:32:32

The higher Samsung Elec goes, the deeper internal collision over rewards SEOUL, May 07 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics has much to celebrate — joining the rare ranks of companies generating more than $40 billion in quarterly profit and surpassing a $1 trillion market capitalization. Yet beneath the triumph, the company faces growing internal strains that mirror the strengths and vulnerabilities of the broader Korean economy, heavily hanging on the semiconductor boom. The founding principle of “One Samsung” is showing visible cracks as divisions drift further apart — financially, culturally and strategically. The gap is most stark between the Device Solutions (DS) division, which oversees semiconductors, and the Device eXperience (DX) division, responsible for mobile devices and home appliances. In the first quarter, DS generated 53.7 trillion won ($39.2 billion) in operating profit, accounting for nearly 94 percent of the company’s earnings. DX contributed a comparatively modest 3 trillion won ($2.2 billion). The widening imbalance has begun spilling into labor relations. According to union sources, more than 2,500 DX employees recently withdrew from the representative labor union, SELU, arguing that they were being sacrificed to bankroll ever-fatter paychecks for semiconductor workers. Unionized employees within the DS division counter that their demands are aimed at ensuring compensation remains competitive with industry rivals. “The friction is less about the absolute amount than about maintaining rewards that remain competitive against our peers,” a union official from the DS division said. The official worried that prolonged disputes over compensation could eventually accelerate an outflow of talent to rival chipmakers, posing a longer-term threat to the company’s competitiveness. Discontent within DX also reflects growing anxiety over the rapid rise of Chinese competitors in consumer electronics and home appliances. Amid deteriorating performance, Samsung has decided to withdraw its money-losing home appliance and television sales operations in China. On Wednesday, the company informed local partners and employees of the decision, citing intensifying competition and a rapidly shifting business environment. While Samsung will retain its NAND flash production facility in Xi’an and its appliance factory in Suzhou, the withdrawal has already triggered demands from local employees for “restructuring incentives.” According to industry trackers, Samsung — which once commanded nearly 20 percent of China’s television market in 2005 — has seen its offline retail market share collapse to just 3.62 percent as of April 2026, far behind local competitors. The picture is even bleaker in white goods, where Samsung’s market share in refrigerators and washing machines has fallen below 0.5 percent this year. China’s consumer electronics market has become brutally competitive, with rapid technological catch-up by domestic firms and growing concerns over technology leakage making profitability increasingly elusive for foreign players. China's ascent is no longer confined to the home turf. According to 2025 data from Counterpoint Research, Chinese manufacturers TCL and Hisense captured a combined 25 percent share of the global TV market by shipment volume, overtaking the combined 24 percent held by Samsung and LG. Samsung accounted for 15 percent and LG 9 percent. Still, "it would be unreasonable to interpret this as Samsung giving up on home appliances altogether, as its premium image remains strong in many global markets,” said Hwang Yong-sik, a business administration professor at Sejong University. “A period of selection and concentration has arrived, and Samsung appears to be reinforcing its portfolio around high-tech AI and semiconductors.” Hwang added that the simultaneous labor strife is also a structural byproduct of managing a sprawling conglomerate. Unlike SK hynix, which effectively operates as a pure semiconductor company, Samsung houses multiple strategic business units under a single corporate structure, making differentiated, performance-based compensation an almost inevitable source of tension. “This labor-versus-labor conflict is an expected outcome stemming from the need to distribute incentives differently across business units, combined with South Korea’s institutional framework allowing multiple unions,” Hwang said. “It is not simply a management failure, but a structural issue inherent to Samsung’s diversified portfolio and Korea’s labor system.” Unionized workers have warned of a potential full-scale strike later this month if negotiations remain deadlocked — a scenario that could inflict serious damage on Samsung’s core semiconductor operations, which run continuously around the clock. “A court will rule on May 20 on the company’s injunction request seeking to block a strike on grounds that semiconductors constitute a strategic national industry.” Although semiconductor fabrication plants are highly automated, industry analysts estimate that even partial disruptions to logistics or manual processes could result in substantial daily losses. Should disruptions escalate into a full production halt, estimated daily losses could climb as high as 1 trillion won ($730 million). Any deterioration in chip yields or wafer damage caused by operational interruptions would be especially costly as Samsung races to meet surging global demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. Shares of Samsung Electronics hit new historic high, closing Thursday 2.8 percent up at 273,500 won. 2026-05-07 17:20:28

S. Korean AI firm Upstage acquires web portal Daum to bolster sovereign AI race SEOUL, May 07 (AJP) - In a bid to build South Korea's sovereign AI foundation model, Upstage, one of the country's artificial intelligence powerhouses, has finalized the acquisition of web service portal Daum for an undisclosed amount, the AI company said Thursday. Daum is South Korea's iconic web service that was launched in 1995 as an arts and entertainment service portal. The service gradually upgraded to add other services such as web search, email, online magazine, and news to garner more than one million registered users in 1998. The web service's operator Daum Communication, later merged with messenger app giant Kakao to become Daum Kakao in 2015, and Daum's operating division was separated by Kakao in December 2025 into a subsidiary named AXG. According to Upstage, the acquisition deal was signed as a share swap, with the AI company acquiring the entire 100 percent stake in AXZ held by Kakao, while Kakao received newly issued shares in Upstage in return. The acquisition was made about three months after Upstage and Kakao signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in January this year. Through the acquisition of the web service portal, Upstage plans to combine its Solar large language model (LLM) with Daum's web search engine and context data to build "Context AI," a service designed to understand user intent and context rather than just matching keywords. Upstage said that the acquisition will eventually lead the company to develop a next-generation AI portal built on South Korean technology and data. "The combination of Upstage's technology and a 30-year-old national portal will mark a symbolic turning point for the AI industry, opening a new era of AI portals," Upstage CEO Kim Sung-hoon said in a statement. One of the central questions surrounding the deal concerned Daum's workforce. Upstage said Daum will continue to operate as an independent legal entity with no personnel changes. The company also pushed back against speculation that Daum's user data would be funneled into Solar's training pipeline. Bae Sung-beom, technical communications lead at Upstage, told AJP in a written response that the term 'training' in the LLM context refers specifically to the pre-learning and post-learning of foundation models and does not mean user data will be used for the machine learning of AI systems. "This kind of data is absolutely not used," Bae said. "It is impossible without the consent and cooperation of users, who are the data subjects. And even with consent, it must comply with relevant laws, including the Personal Information Protection Act." For Upstage, the acquisition lands at a pivotal moment. The 2020-founded company became South Korea's first generative AI unicorn last year after an 180-billion-won ($130 million) Series C round and has signaled plans for a KOSPI listing this year. Its Solar Pro 2, released last summer, became the first Korean-developed LLM ranked as a global frontier model. The current model, Solar Pro 3, was released in March. Upstage is also leading one of four consortia in South Korea's national "sovereign AI" project. For Kakao, this deal allows it to monetize a long-stagnant asset while preserving indirect exposure through its new equity stake in Upstage, a common pattern as the conglomerate retreats from non-core businesses amid regulatory pressure. 2026-05-07 17:13:58

South Korea, Japan hold first vice ministerial '2+2' talks in Seoul SEOUL, May 7 (AJP) - South Korean and Japanese foreign and defense officials met in Seoul on Thursday to discuss ways to strengthen security cooperation. In the format of their first "2+2" vice ministerial meeting, South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo and Vice Defense Minister Lee Doo-hee met with their respective counterparts Takehiro Funakoshi and Koji Kano. Thursday's meeting, which came after the previous one in Tokyo in November 2024, was upgraded to vice ministerial level this time. Such talks, held at the working level under a 1997 agreement between the two neighboring countries, have been suspended and resumed at times as bilateral ties have fluctuated. With detailed discussions yet to be disclosed, the two sides were believed to have exchanged views on key security issues including North Korea's nuclear threat and the prolonged conflict in the Middle East. With both countries importing large amounts of energy from the region, they were also likely to explore cooperation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bolster energy security. 2026-05-07 17:01:46

How AI is erasing entry-level career path in Korea SEOUL, May 7 (AJP) - Near midnight in Seoul's Gangnam district, the lights inside law offices still burn long after neighboring buildings have gone dark. But for many junior lawyers, the exhaustion no longer comes from endless paperwork alone. Artificial intelligence has sharply shortened the time needed for much of the grunt work that once consumed young associates' nights — document reviews, precedent searches and first-pass drafting. Yet the workload itself has not eased. Many firms, increasingly reliant on AI tools, are simply hiring fewer junior workers to handle what remains. For 37-year-old law firm assistant James Kim, complaining is hardly an option in a profession where even landing an entry-level position has become fiercely competitive. "The fear now isn't overwork," he said. "It's eventually not being needed." Across South Korea's white-collar industries, AI is beginning to reshape not only how young professionals work, but whether they are hired at all. As firms automate more of the routine tasks once assigned to junior employees, younger workers increasingly worry that AI is eroding the apprenticeship system through which future experts were traditionally trained. The anxiety is becoming increasingly visible in employment data. According to the Bank of Korea, nearly 98 percent of the roughly 211,000 youth jobs lost between July 2022 and July 2025 were concentrated in industries with high AI exposure. Employment in South Korea's professional, scientific and technical services sector fell by about 105,000 in February from a year earlier, marking the steepest decline since the current industrial classification system was introduced in 2013. For many younger professionals, the labor market increasingly feels less like the beginning of a career than a struggle for survival. "Law school graduates attend bar association programs during the day and spend hours at night sending out resumes," Kim sighed. The shift is exposing a growing paradox of the AI era. The same tools boosting productivity may also be weakening the apprenticeship structure through which junior workers traditionally became experts. "These tasks were not glamorous, but they were often the training ground through which young professionals learned how the business works," said Kwon Hyeok-koo, a professor of Nanyang Technological University's business school. For decades, junior employees learned through repetition — researching cases, drafting reports, making mistakes and receiving corrections from senior colleagues. AI is now compressing or bypassing many of those stages altogether. According to Yoo Joshua, a lawyer at a Seoul-based law firm, younger lawyers are losing the process through which they once learned "how to think" in practice as AI has taken up much of their work. The longer-term risk is not simply job displacement but erosion of professional judgment itself. Lyse Langlois, a professor of Industrial Relations at Laval University and director of the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology (OBVIA) said younger workers risk developing what she described as an "autopilot" relationship with AI — relying on AI outputs passively without critically questioning or verifying them. "If people stop critically examining AI-generated outputs, they may gradually stop developing independent judgment altogether," she warned. Kwon said reducing junior hiring may appear efficient in the short run, but could damage the future supply of skilled professionals. The key challenge, he said, is whether younger workers can still develop the judgment needed to recognize and correct AI's mistakes. Citing the "jagged frontier" findings from a recent field experiment by global consulting firm Boston Consulting Group, Kwon said AI can improve performance within its capability range but may also increase errors when users overtrust plausible but incorrect outputs. As a result, he said, early-career skills are shifting toward AI orchestration, verification and judgment under uncertainty. "It changes the role of junior workers from 'doing the first version' to 'supervising, checking, and improving the machine-generated first version,'" Kwon said, noting that entry-level professionals now need different skills, including knowing what questions to ask, recognizing flawed outputs, understanding company-specific data and judging whether AI-generated answers make sense in context. Kwon also warned, "AI can widen gaps when the valuable part of work depends on tacit knowledge, client relationships, reputation, or contextual judgment." The transformation is already reshaping hiring patterns across industries. Kwon, a 37-year-old architect who now leads an AI-related division at his firm, said generative AI tools have radically accelerated conceptual design work over the past several years. "Tasks like generating images or exploring design alternatives have become dramatically faster," he said. "Tools like Midjourney and Nano Banana — AI-based image and concept visualization tools — allow architects to visualize multiple design concepts almost instantly." Yet he said the final stages of professional work remain deeply human. "You still need people to refine prompts, interpret client demands, apply structural logic and ensure compliance with regulations," he said. "AI can generate options, but judgment remains a human responsibility." Yet, many firms are cutting junior hiring while seeking more experienced workers with proven decision-making skills. "In architecture, entry-level hiring has dropped by nearly 50 percent, while demand for workers with five to 10 years of experience continues to grow," he said. "Today, firms care less about pure design ability and more about whether someone can strategically use AI tools while coordinating across multiple disciplines." Kwon of Nanyang argued that firms using AI mainly as a cost-cutting tool may boost short-term efficiency while weakening long-term talent development. "The bigger risk is that it erodes the apprenticeship model through which young professionals become experts," he said. "Firms that redesign training around AI will benefit; firms that only cut junior tasks may face a future talent shortage." At the education level, Kwon stressed the need for universities to adapt their training models as AI becomes embedded in professional work. "Universities need to teach AI literacy together with domain reasoning," he said. "Students should learn not only how to use AI tools, but also how to challenge them, audit them and combine them with human judgment." He also warned that Korea faces additional structural risks because adult-learning participation remains relatively low. Citing OECD data, Kwon noted that Korea's adult-learning participation rate stands at about 13 percent, compared with an OECD average of 40 percent, underscoring the need for stronger lifelong-learning systems, reskilling incentives and support for smaller firms with limited training resources. Erik Cambria, professor of Artificial Intelligence at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) similarly argued that future education systems will need to prioritize conceptual understanding over task execution. "The value in the emerging 'relationship economy' increasingly comes from understanding context, intent and human nuance rather than simply producing outputs," he said. He added that education and workplace training should place greater emphasis on critical thinking, interdisciplinary understanding and the ability to work with — and critically assess — AI systems. Not every profession, however, is experiencing AI as a direct threat. In medicine, AI is increasingly seen as a tool that reduces repetitive work while allowing doctors to focus more on diagnosis and their core responsibilities. South Korea's medical and social welfare sector added 294,000 jobs in March from a year earlier, the largest increase among all industries, sharply contrasting with declines in technical fields where employment fell by 61,000 during the same period. Benjamin Lee, a 36-year-old medical resident at a university hospital in Incheon, said AI has already reduced much of the repetitive administrative workload inside hospitals. He said the impact varies by specialty. "Radiology and emergency medicine are seeing the fastest changes because AI can quickly assist with analysis," he said. "Tasks like organizing patient records, chart documentation and scheduling are becoming increasingly automated, which allows doctors to focus more on judgment and treatment." Data-heavy departments such as pathology and cardiology have also seen major efficiency gains, he added. By contrast, surgical specialties and psychiatry — where face-to-face patient interaction remains central — have experienced relatively limited disruption. The shift is increasingly reflected in broader industry research as well. According to the Anthropic Economic Index, AI use is increasingly centered on "augmentation" — working alongside humans — rather than full automation replacing them. The report found that while AI is reducing repetitive tasks, it is simultaneously increasing the importance of higher-level responsibilities such as management, contextual judgment and decision-making. In effect, researchers said, AI is driving both "deskilling" in routine work and "upskilling" in more complex, judgment-intensive roles at the same time. Experts say adapting to that transition will require a redesign of education and workplace training around an "AI apprenticeship model." Rather than banning AI-assisted work, Kwon said educators should require students to explain what prompts they used, what outputs they verified and why they accepted or rejected certain results. He said organizations still need to preserve some foundational work without AI so junior employees can understand the underlying logic of their profession. "At the same time, managers should create AI-assisted assignments where juniors must explain what the AI produced, what they accepted or rejected, and why," he said, adding that "managers should evaluate the process, not only the final output." He also said companies should require junior workers to document how they used AI, including what prompts they entered, what assumptions they checked, which sources they verified and what risks remained. According to Kwon, this would turn AI from an invisible shortcut into part of the learning process itself. Kwon further emphasized the need for more structured mentoring systems, warning that while AI can make younger employees more independent, it may also reduce interactions with senior colleagues and make it harder for managers to detect knowledge gaps. "Firms should rely less on informal help-seeking and instead introduce more deliberate check-ins, case reviews and post-task debriefings," he said. Langlois raised what she called a more fundamental question. "What do we want to value as a society?" she asked. "A model driven by hyper-competitiveness and innovation, at the risk of leaving a significant portion of the population behind, or one in which everyone has a place, and where AI serves human beings?" Shortly before 2 a.m. in Seoul's Gangnam district, the lights inside an architecture office remained on. AI-generated renderings filled one side of a monitor. Structural calculations covered the other. Coffee cups sat stacked beside keyboards. The output was arriving faster than ever. But judgment — and responsibility for the outcome — still rested with humans. 2026-05-07 16:36:21