Korea has seen its deficit from tourism inch up in the first five months of the year, central bank data showed Sunday.The tourism deficit reached $1.49 billion in the January-May period, up 1.3 percent from the $1.47 billion from the same period last year, according to the data by the Bank of Korea.The BOK attributed the continued deficit of the industry to an increasing number of Koreans going abroad on vacation due to cheap airfare. The number of Koreans who traveled abroad came to 8.85 millio

Stock assets owned by Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Jae-yong suffered the biggest decline among the country’s 50 richest people this year, according to Seoul-based corporate tracker Chaebul.com.Lee‘s stock assets were worth 6.39 trillion won as of this month, down about 20 percent from 7.61 trillion won in January. The sluggish performance of major Samsung affiliates was the primary cause of the fall. The stock assets of Lee’s two sisters -- Boo-jin, CEO of Hotel Shilla and Seo-hyeon, CE

For the second consecutive year, college graduates who are seeking jobs have picked the nation’s Internet portal giant Naver as the employer they most want to work for, according to a survey by Internet recruiting service Incruit on Thursday.Naver was followed by food giant CJ Cheiljedang, cosmetics maker AmorePacific and Samsung Electronics.Incruit officials said respondents seem to think that when it comes to job seeking, a company’s vision and job stability are more important than high wages.

Food and beverage products that are traditionally considered to be low-cost choices when eating out have seen a price spike in the second quarter of this year, according to Statistics Korea.The largest increase was in the price of soju, which leaped 12.5 percent relative to last year. This is the second consecutive quarter in which soju has seen the biggest on-year price jump.Other popular foods when eating out such as gimbap and ramen have also risen significantly. Gimbap prices rose 5.2 percen

Mobile shopping in Korea soared 41.7 percent to a record high of 2.697 trillion won ($2.4 billion) in May from a year earlier, according to a government report Monday.“Purchases on mobile devices jumped last month due to convenience, competitive prices and a bigger range of products. And the trend is set to strengthen over time,” said an official from Statistics Korea.Mobile shopping accounted for 52.1 percent of the country’s overall online shopping sales worth 5.178 trillion won last month, up

To mark its second anniversary on June 29, the Islamic State group revealed a graph showing its worldwide network on Instagram, titled “Spread of Islamic State.”On the graph, Syria and Iraq are claimed to be its “areas of major control.” Libya, Nigeria, Egypt, Yemen, Chechenya, the Republic of Dagestan, Afghanistan, Niger, the Philippines and Somalia are claimed to be “areas of medium control,” while Algeria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Tunisia and France are labeled “areas with p

Korea had the highest average Internet connection speed in the world in the first quarter of this year, according to a report by Akamai Technologies, a content delivery network provider headquartered in the U.S. The report released Friday showed that in the first quarter of the year, Korea had four times faster average Internet speed at 29 megabits per second, an 8.6 percent increase over the previous quarter. It was followed by Norway, Sweden, Hong Kong and Switzerland. The world average was 6.

The number of single-income households in Korea increased to 5 million last year, taking a 27.2 percent share of the total, according to data Thursday.Statistics Korea said the data also showed nearly half of all married couples were double-income families. The proportion of double-income families stood at 43.9 percent, which slightly increased from the previous year. What is notable is the increase of double-income couples living separately. Officials attributed the increase to massive relocati

The job quality of Korean women still remains low compared to their male counterparts, although the female employment rate edged up slightly last year, data showed Monday.Statistics Korea said in its compiled report that among all female employees, 40.3 percent were irregular workers as of March this year, while the figure for men stood at 25.5 percent.In terms of salary, a female worker was paid an average 1.78 million won ($1,530) a month last year, 62.8 percent of that of men in the country.

South Koreans get the least sleep among those in Asia-Pacific, according to a healthy living index by life insurance group AIA.The study showed that Koreans on average slept 6.3 hours per night, which was less than the Asia-Pacific average of 6.9 hours. However, Koreans actually want to sleep 7.5 hours every night. Also, 74 percent of Koreans were dissatisfied with their weight and they on average wanted to lose 7.2 kilograms. A relatively high proportion of Koreans, 31 percent, was also skippin

Revenue and operating profit generated per worker at the top 30 listed companies here have been falling in the past five years, but pay on average has been growing in the same period, a study showed Monday.According to the Federation of Korean Industries, sales produced per employee dropped 2.7 percent on average from 1.07 billion won ($902,800) in 2011 to 968.6 million won in 2015. Operating profit per employee also declined 7.1 percent on average from 71.32 million won to 53.17 million won. Th

As Great Britain voted to leave the European Union, domestic attention is being paid to how it might affect Korea’s trade with the Western European country. According to a report from the Industry Ministry, two-way trade volume reached $13.8 billion in 2015, with Korea‘s exports amounting to $7.7 billion. Particularly, the nation’s 13 major items of exports to Britain accounted for $7.39 billion. Among the export items, ships topped the list at $2.5 billion, followed by cars with $1.5 billion an

Korea’s exports are projected to improve in the second half of this year, despite the poor performances of the semiconductor and shipbuilding industries, data showed Thursday. According to the Korea Institute for Economics & Trade’s report, the amount of exports will recover in the second half of this year and reach an increase rate of minus 1.3 percent compared to last year. Exports in the first half plummeted by 10.8 percent on-year. The overall export increase rate is projected to record minu

Korea’s retail giant Lotte Group topped the ranking for making mergers and acquisitions deals over the past six years, data showed Tuesday. According to corporate tracker CEO Score, Lotte took over a total of 21 companies through M&A deals from 2010 to 2015. The size of the deals amounted to $6.5 billion, accounting for 20 percent of total M&A deals made by the top 30 conglomerates. Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin has aggressively pushed for the deals since 2004, completing 36 such deals so f