Hyundai E&C, Posco E&C top serious accident reports with 6 cases each over 21 months

An apartment construction site in Seoul [Yonhap]
An apartment construction site in Seoul [Yonhap]

Eleven companies reported three or more serious workplace accidents to the Ministry of Employment and Labor from last year through September this year, and eight of them were construction firms. Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Posco E&C led all companies with six reports each.

Corporate data research firm CEO Score said Wednesday that it analyzed companies' 2025 annual reports, 2026 half-year reports and publicly disclosed serious accident filings, finding that 99 companies reported serious workplace accidents to the ministry over the 21 months from January last year through September this year, totaling 147 cases.

Of those, 11 companies filed three or more reports during the same period. Construction companies made up eight of the 11, accounting for 72.7 percent.

Hyundai Engineering & Construction and Posco E&C each filed six reports, the most of any company. The cases reported by Posco E&C resulted in nine casualties — six deaths and three injuries. Three of those reports came from the Sinansan Line construction project alone, where fatalities occurred in April and December last year and in June this year at sections the company was building.

The six cases reported by Hyundai Engineering & Construction resulted in seven casualties — six deaths and one injury. At the Shaheen ethylene facility construction site, one worker died in a soil-collapse entrapment accident in June and another died in a fall in September.

HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Kia each filed four reports. Hyundai Engineering, HJ Shipbuilding & Construction and five other companies each filed three.

The cases reported by Hyundai Engineering resulted in 13 casualties — six deaths and seven injuries — the highest casualty count among the 11 companies that filed three or more reports. HJ Shipbuilding & Construction recorded the most fatalities, with nine deaths.

The analysis classified accidents by the location where they occurred, including incidents involving affiliates, subsidiaries and subcontractors as belonging to the primary company at that site.

However, the figures are based on companies' serious accident filings rather than confirmed determinations. The totals include cases later excluded from the serious accident category after the cause of death was attributed to a pre-existing medical condition, as well as cases where serious accident status has yet to be finalized — meaning the figures may differ from the number of confirmed serious accidents.


fact0514@heraldcorp.com