A tripartite commission representing labor, business and the general public finally set the hourly minimum wage for next year at 9,860 won ($7.8) Wednesday, up 2.5 percent from this year. It is equivalent to a monthly wage of nearly 2.07 million won. The process for determining the minimum wage is always a painful process, but this year proved to be extremely tough. From the outset, representatives from labor and the general public clashed with each other, resulting in the cancellation of the fi

The causes and background of the Osong underpass flooding accident in North Chungcheong Province are coming to light in dribs and drabs. Further details will emerge now that the government has launched its inspection, but facts revealed so far show that the anti-disaster response system was not working properly due to insensitivity to safety and complacency. The flooding of the Gungpyeong-2 underpass tunnel in Osong-eup in the Heungdeok district of Cheongju was a fatal accident that could have b

South Korea’s household debt is growing at an alarming pace amid lingering concerns about financial risks that might shoot up depending on a combination of internal and external factors. The debt service ratio, or DSR, for households in Korea stood at 13.6 percent last year, the second-highest among 17 major countries, the Bank of International Settlements said in a report. Australia ranked first with 14.7 percent DSR. The DSR is used as a metric by lenders and borrowers to measure the pro