Little Improvement in Labor Sector
The Ministry of Strategy & Finance announced on October 17 that South Korea ranked 15th out of 140 countries in this year’s Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Last year, South Korea ranked 17th.
The country joined the top 30 in 10 out of the 12 categories of the report. It came in first in macroeconomic stability and ICT adoption. In the latter category, it ranked first in fiber Internet subscriptions and sixth in fixed-broadband Internet subscriptions.
Meanwhile, South Korea came in 48th in labor market and 67th in product market. In the former category, it placed 124th in cooperation in labor-employer relations, 114th in redundancy costs, 108th in workers’ rights, and 104th in ease of hiring foreign labor. In product market, it came in 96th in trade tariffs, 93rd in extent of market dominance and 85th in complexity of tariffs.
In addition, South Korea ranked sixth in infrastructure, eighth in innovation capability, 14th in market size, 19th in health, 19th in financial system, 22nd in business dynamism, 27th in institutions, and 27th in skills.
The country came in first in budget transparency, inflation, debt dynamics, e-participation index, and electrification rate, second in non-performing loans, R&D expenditures, and buyer sophistication, third in liner shipping connectivity index, fourth in insurance premium and efficiency of train services, sixth in quality of land administration, eighth in insolvency regulatory framework, and ninth in efficiency of air transport services. On the other hand, it ranked 90th in critical thinking in teaching, 82nd in diversity of workforce, and 50th in efficiency of legal framework in setting disputes.
This year’s chart is topped by the United States, followed by Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Canada, Taiwan, and Australia. South Korea ranked fifth in Asia. Norway, France and China came in 16th, 17th and 28th, respectively.