4,205 companies with 300-plus workers disclose employment types
Share of directly employed workers rises 0.5 percentage points to 84.2%
Fixed-term, part-time increases concentrated in health and welfare sector
Companies with 300 or more workers directly employed more than 100,000 additional workers compared with last year, while the number of workers hired through staffing agencies, subcontractors and outsourcing arrangements fell. However, among directly employed workers, the share of both fixed-term and part-time workers rose.
According to the "2026 Employment Type Disclosure Results" released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor on Tuesday, 4,205 companies disclosed their employment structures this year, covering about 5.918 million workers — 29 more companies and 91,000 more workers than last year. The disclosure covers companies with 300 or more regular workers and reflects employment conditions as of March 31 this year.
The number of workers directly employed by their companies reached about 4.983 million, an increase of 107,000. Their share of total disclosed workers rose 0.5 percentage points, from 83.7 percent to 84.2 percent.
By contrast, workers employed by a third party but working at the disclosing company — so-called non-affiliated workers — fell by 16,000 to 936,000, with their share dropping from 16.3 percent to 15.8 percent. The ministry said the decline was largely driven by a decrease of 16,000 non-affiliated workers in the construction sector.
Even as direct hiring expanded, fixed-term employment grew rapidly.
The number of fixed-term workers rose by 67,000 to about 1.412 million, accounting for 28.3 percent of directly employed workers — up 0.7 percentage points from last year. Workers on open-ended contracts increased by 41,000 to about 3.57 million, but their share fell 0.7 percentage points to 71.7 percent.
Part-time workers grew by 27,000 to 450,000, raising their share among directly employed workers by 0.4 percentage points to 9.0 percent. Of the increase in fixed-term workers, 29,000 came from the health and welfare sector, as did 20,000 of the increase in part-time workers.
The ministry said the growth reflects an expansion of health, welfare and social service jobs driven by an aging population, as well as cases in which companies rehired mandatory retirees as fixed-term or part-time workers.
"It is positive that the number and share of directly employed workers at disclosing companies have increased," Employment and Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon said. "We will do our utmost to ensure that workers are not subject to unreasonable discrimination based on their employment type."
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