What if the company you work for legally couldn’t fire you — not today, not tomorrow, not ever?
It sounds like an employee’s dream come true.
But in South Korea, this isn’t fantasy. It’s reality. Once you hire someone, firing them becomes nearly impossible.
South Korea has some of the strictest labour protections in the developed world.
Yet here's the shocking twist — these laws aren’t creating or saving jobs.
They’re damaging the employment landscape and, tragically, contributing to worker deaths.
Sounds unbelievable?
Let me share a real story that recently shook South Korea, and we’ll trace how it connects back to these hyper-rigid labour laws.
A Tragic Morning: July 15, 2025
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| Photo - MBC NEWS |
Hyo-won Jung, a full-time employee at the insanely popular “London Bagel Museum” bakery chain, woke up feeling completely drained in his company dorm room. He had only been with the company for about 14 months, but his schedule was already unbearable.
That week alone, he had clocked in 80 hours — the company was launching a new outlet in Incheon, and he was part of the opening crew.
On July 15th, he was due for yet another marathon shift: 9 AM to midnight, a brutal 15-hour stretch.
And this wasn’t even his toughest shift that week.
Just five days earlier, he had worked 21 hours straight — from 9 AM until 6 AM the next morning.
When he finally dragged himself back to the dorm near midnight, coworkers invited him for a late-night snack.
He hadn’t even eaten dinner.
But he was far too exhausted — he went straight to his room instead.
The Next Day: Silence at His Door
On July 16th, his coworkers sensed something was wrong.
Hyo-won was always the earliest one awake, but that morning, his room stayed shut.
When they checked on him, they found his body — stiff, lifeless, and unresponsive.
Paramedics arrived within nine minutes.
Cause of death: cardiac arrest.
Age: 26.
The autopsy revealed no medical issues, no heart condition, no hidden illness.
Only one glaring factor: an 80-hour workload leading up to his death.
The news exploded across Korean media, forcing London Bagel Museum’s CEO to issue a public apology on October 28, 2025.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor immediately launched investigations into overwork and unpaid labor.
But sadly, this was not an isolated case.
Overwork: A Recurring Nightmare
In the last five years, over 1,000 Korean workers have died from overwork — more than 200 every single year.
This is the painful contradiction of South Korea’s labor laws:
Rules meant to protect workers now create environments where people collapse under impossible workloads.On paper, youth unemployment appears low — around 5–6%.
But talk to any Korean in their 20s, and you’ll hear the truth:
Landing a stable, full-time job feels nearly impossible.
The government keeps funneling billions into employment programs.
International companies hesitate to set up operations.
Meanwhile, Korea’s brightest young minds are leaving the country to build their futures elsewhere.
How did good intentions twist into such harmful outcomes?
To understand that, we have to go back — way back.
South Korea in the 1960s: A Country on Its Knees
The Korean War had left millions dead and cities turned to rubble.
Seoul was devastated.
One-quarter of the population was homeless.
GDP per capita: $100 per year — poorer than Cambodia, the Philippines, and even North Korea.
South Korea survived mainly on U.S. aid — up to 80% of its national budget.
This was the world President Chung-hee Park inherited after staging a military coup in 1961 and taking office in 1963.
Park is remembered as one of Korea’s most controversial leaders.
Some hail him as the architect of Korea’s economic miracle.
Others condemn him as an authoritarian who crushed democracy and exploited labor.
His policies elevated chaebols — family-run behemoths like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG.
Park believed Korea needed dominant Korean companies more than individual freedoms.
To him, success justified sacrifice — even if that meant sacrificing workers.
The Human Cost of the Miracle
Labor unions were crushed.
Strikes banned.
Wages kept artificially low.
Working conditions were cruel.
Women and teen girls (ages 14–24) formed the backbone of textile factories, working 14–16 hours a day for less than $30 a month.
Workers were treated as “industrial soldiers.”
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| Photo Credit/the monday times : Tae-il Jeon - A Labour Activist |
One young worker — Tae-il Jeon — refused to stay silent.
Tae-il worked in suffocating conditions — cramped rooms, no ventilation, workers stuck on split-level floors where they couldn’t stand upright.
His investigation into factory life revealed shocking findings:
- 500 workers sharing a single bathroom
- 15-year-olds working 15–16 hour shifts
- People skipping water to avoid bathroom breaks
- Wages too low for even a bowl of soup
- He reached out to radio stations and newspapers — ignored.
He attempted rallies — denied.
So, on November 13, 1970, he planned to publicly burn the labor standards law — a symbolic protest against a law that existed only on paper.
The police blocked the demonstration.
With no options left, Tae-il doused himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire, shouting:
“Obey the labor standards act!His final words in the hospital: “I’m hungry.”
We are not machines!
Let us rest on Sundays!”
His death sparked outrage — and a revolution.
The Revolutions, the Crackdowns, the Chaos
Throughout the 1970s, workers organised.
By 1979, female workers’ protests triggered nationwide unrest, and Park’s regime fell apart.
Park was assassinated by his own intelligence chief.
But the suffering didn’t end.
Another general, Doo-hwan Chun, seized power — bringing even harsher crackdowns.
Unionising became a crime.
Workers were beaten, jailed, tortured.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking incident was when hundreds of female textile workers stripped to their underwear, believing police wouldn’t attack them.
They were beaten anyway.
1987: The Great Workers Struggle
In 1987, the tension finally exploded into a nationwide strike — over one million workers participated.
Industries from shipyards to mining shut down entirely.
Workers demanded:
- Independent unions
- Collective bargaining
- Basic human dignity
Chun’s government had no choice.
He stepped down.
South Korea adopted a new democratic constitution.
And in the aftermath, the country swung hard — very hard — toward worker protection.
The Birth of Today’s Extreme Labour Laws
After decades of abuse, Korea aggressively overcorrected.
This led to Articles 23 and 24 of the Labour Standards Act — the heart of the issue today.
Article 23:
You cannot fire a worker without a justifiable cause — and the bar is extremely high.
Article 24:
You cannot lay off workers unless your company faces an urgent managerial crisis — essentially bankruptcy.
Poor performance?
Economic slowdown?
Skill mismatch?
Not acceptable reasons.
The final judge?
The Labor Relations Commission — which overwhelmingly sides with workers.
In some regions, mediation settlement rates hit 90%.
Real Cases That Show How Extreme This Can Get
Case 1: The Abusive Director Who Returned to Work
A head youth counseling center was fired in 2020 for sexually harassing eight employees.
He appealed.
The Commission ruled in his favor.
Reason:
His harassment “wasn’t severe enough” and he “did not intend harm.”
He was ordered reinstated — forced to work next to his victims.
Case 2: WeWork Korea — The Subsidiary That Wouldn’t Die
Globally, WeWork laid off thousands as the company collapsed.
But in Korea, employees simply refused voluntary severance packages — and WeWork had no legal path to fire them.
Even when the U.S. parent went bankrupt in 2023, WeWork Korea continued operating about 20 offices.
How Companies Fire Without Firing
Because direct dismissal is nearly impossible, companies rely on “pressure tactics”:
- Gwon-go-sa-jik — pushing employees to resign voluntarily
- Cutting access to tools or work systems
- Assigning impossible workloads
- Removing meaningful responsibilities
- Spreading workplace gossip
- Publicly labelling workers as underperformers
- Excluding them from meetings or projects
- Posting job listings for their role
Older workers face something called “honorable retirement” — early forced resignation masked as dignity.
This toxicity drives away high performers, especially in high-skill sectors like AI.
The Bigger Problem: Companies Stop Hiring Full-Time Staff
When companies fear they can’t fire employees, they avoid hiring them altogether.
In 2025, 56% of mid-sized Korean companies said they have zero plans to hire full-time workers.
Instead:
- They rely on temporary staff
- Contract workers
- Freelancers
- Misclassified labour
A full one-third of Korean wage workers are now contract employees without benefits like pension or health coverage.
And this leads directly back to why someone like Hyo-won ends up working 80-hour weeks:
There simply aren’t enough full-time employees to share the workload.
Startups Suffer Too
The 52-hour workweek law (enforced since 2021) applies even to small startups.
Big corporations find loopholes.
Small founders cannot.
One accounting firm CEO was repeatedly reported by his own employees for requiring overtime during tax season.
He had to attend hearings instead of running his company.
Innovation becomes nearly impossible in such conditions.
The Result: Fewer Jobs, More Exhaustion, Zero Balance
By mid-2025, Korea hit its worst hiring slump since the Asian financial crisis — fewer than 40 full-time openings for every 100 applicants.
The country tried to eliminate exploitation.
But in doing so, companies became terrified of hiring full-time workers altogether.
Meanwhile, Korea hopes to attract global firms to set up Asia headquarters.
But many multinationals see Korean labor law as a “minefield” too risky to navigate.
The Question: Can Korea Find a Middle Path?
Can South Korea balance worker safety with innovation?
Or will it double down on rigid laws that hurt the very people they were meant to protect?
With AI set to reshape the job market, Korea stands at a crossroads.
The answer could either accelerate a new economic miracle —
or trigger a slow erosion of its global competitiveness.
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