SEOUL, December 04 (AJP) - South Korea’s trade union membership increased to 2.77 million at the end of last year, up by about 40,000 from a year earlier, the Ministry of Employment and Labor said on Thursday.
The national unionization rate held steady at 13 percent as the pool of eligible workers continued to expand.
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) remained the country’s largest labor umbrella group with 1.2 million members, accounting for 43.3 percent of total unionized workers. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) had 1.079 million members, or 38.8 percent. About 490,000 workers were affiliated with independent unions.
Unionization in the public sector remained significantly high at 71.7 percent, compared with just 9.8 percent in the private sector.
Larger corporations also showed far stronger labor organization rates, with 35.1 percent of workers unionized at companies with more than 300 employees, versus only 0.1 percent at firms with fewer than 30 staff.
* This article, published by Economic Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP.
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