South Korea employment facts
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These are the 15 statutory values we hold for South Korea in Global Employment Facts (Employ Borderless), 3 of them read from a statute or the government that administers it. Each row names the page it came from, the date the figure took effect and the date a person last checked it. They are legal minimums, not what employers in South Korea actually offer, and they are what our three published indexes score South Korea on.
Robbin Schuchmann
Co-founder, Employ Borderless
What the law requires in South Korea
KR| Field | Value | Unit | Tier | Source | Effective | Verified | Caveats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| National public holidayspublic_holidays | 16 | days a year | Statute | National statutes and government sources | 2026-01-01 | 2026-09-16 | - |
| Statutory notice periodnotice_weeks | 4.3 | weeks | Official | ILO EPLEX | 2026-01-01 | 2026-08-30 | - |
| Statutory severanceseverance_weeks | 23.1 | weeks | Official | World Bank Employing Workers | 2019-05-01 | 2026-06-22 | - |
| Employer social contributionsemployer_ssc_rate | 11.06 | % of gross pay | Official | OECD | 2025-01-01 | 2026-09-13 | - |
| Employee social contributionsemployee_ssc_rate | 9.4 | % of gross pay | Official | OECD | 2025-01-01 | 2026-09-13 | - |
| Statutory minimum wagemin_wage_monthly | 2,096,270 | a month | Statute | National statutes and government sources | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-17 | - |
| Income tax bracketsincome_tax_brackets | 1 band | - | Official | OECD | 2025-01-01 | 2026-09-13 | - |
| Top personal income tax ratepersonal_income_tax_top_rate | 45 | % | Secondary | PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries | 2026-06-04 | 2026-08-03 | - |
| Corporate tax ratecorporate_tax_rate | 27.5 | % | Official | OECD | 2026-01-01 | 2026-09-13 | - |
| Standard VAT ratevat_rate | 10 | % | Secondary | PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries | 2026-06-04 | 2026-08-03 | - |
| Statutory maternity leavematernity_leave_weeks | 12.9 | weeks | Official | oecd_family_db | 2024-01-01 | 2026-06-11 | - |
| Statutory paternity leavepaternity_leave_weeks | 55 | weeks | Official | world_bank_wbl | 2026-02-23 | - | - |
| Statutory parental leaveparental_leave_weeks | 78 | weeks | Official | oecd_family_db | 2024-01-01 | 2026-06-11 | - |
| Statutory weekly hoursavg_weekly_hours | 40 | hours a week | Extracted | statutory_working_time | 2024-01-01 | 2026-06-23 | - |
| State pension ageretirement_age | 60 | years | Statute | National statutes and government sources | 2026-09-12 | 2026-09-17 | - |
Where a field is missing from this table, we hold no sourced value for South Korea and publish the gap rather than filling it. Where a statute and a compilation disagree, the statute wins.
Source tiers on this page: Statute is statute or government source · Official is official multilateral compilation · Secondary is secondary compiler · Extracted is machine-extracted, editorially reviewed.
Use these numbers
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with attribution. The full edition, the per-field coverage table, the corrections log and the methodology live on the dataset page.
For what these rules mean in practice, who can employ under them and what hiring there actually costs, read our guide to hiring in South Korea.
Schuchmann, R. (2026). Global Employment Facts (Employ Borderless) [Data set]. Employ Borderless. https://employborderless.com/hiring-intelligence/global-employment-facts/
DOI pending. Until the Zenodo record resolves, cite the canonical URL above. Cite the dataset, not this page: the edition is frozen, so the numbers above will still be these numbers next quarter.