• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.1-44
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• 2013

This paper surveys the existing literatures on labor demand of Korea. It has been found that labor and capital are substitutes in Korea and the result holds even if labor is decomposed into white collar and blue collar workers. The elasticity of substitution lies between 0 and 1. It is yet unclear if employment and work hours are substitutes. The reduction of legal work week did not increase employment although decreased work hours. The labor demand elasticity is below 0.5 in the short run. Since mid 1990s, the technological change has shown skill bias and therefore increased demand for skilled labor.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.1-28
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• 2011

This paper empirically tests the theory that labor demand elasticity of unionized firms would be smaller than that of nonunionized firms, using the Korean firms' panel data for 1990-2009. The major findings are the following: First, the estimates of labor demand elasticity of unionized firms are in the range of 0.34-0.49, less than a half of those of nonunionized firms, hence supporting the theory. Second, the unionized firms are more rigid in dynamic adjustment of employment than nonunionized firms. Finally, there are no significant differences between unionized and nonunionized firms in the elasticity of substitution.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.37-57
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• 1996

Intra-metropolitan spatial segmentation of the labor marker requires barriers of mobility on both supply and demand side of the local labor marker. The phenomena of spatial segmentation of the labor market are particularly applied to the secondary workers rather than to the primary workers. Supply side barriers include the costs of obtaining job information regarding jobs outside of the immediate area, commuting costs, and barriers to residential mobility. Demand side barriers include site-specific technology and product demand, and discrimination. In this paper, I discuss these barriers and examine their implications for differences in segmentation by demographic and skill groups at the intra-metropolitan scale. In particular, I apply a job search model to examine supply side barriers such as information and commuting costs, and an implicit contract model to explain demand side barriers such as dual/internal labor market and firms' (re) location strategies.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.21-35
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• 2021

The purpose of this paper is to examine how demand for labor affects the job seeker's decision on the level of investment in education. In the current paradigm of economic growth in which innovations and technological developments generally weaken the strength demand for labor and increases the uncertainty related to employment, this paper provides a theoretical framework that can be used as a basic framework in understanding the decision of investment in education in varying conditions of demand for labor. The following are the findings of this paper. First, the level of investment in education can generally be regarded to be higher as the demand for labor exacerbates but for the job seekers with a certain characteristic. Second, the Arrow-Pratt absolute risk-aversion measure is the characteristic of the job seeker that determines in what direction the job seeker changes in the level of investment in education, For an arbitrary level of demand for labor there exists a certain threshold which determines the minimum degree of risk-aversion required for the job seeker's Arrow-Pratt should go over to increase the level of education as demand for labor weakens. Third, the job seekers lower the level of education even though the demand condition in labor markets weakens if the compensation function does not depend on the level of education. This is surprising because it turns out that one of the reasons why job seekers invest in education is that they want to be recognized in their compensation for their level of education even when more education still raises the probability of employment.

• Korea journal of population studies
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.47-65
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• 1985

Three stages of population growth during last forty years affected differently to the labor force and employment in Korea. The first impact of rapid population growth on the labor force occured after the end of World War II. Sudden growth of population due to repartriation and refugees directly increased the labor force. Deteriorating labor market conditions were caused not only by the explosive labor supply but also by the shortage of employment opportunities due to a lack of productive facilities. This severe excess supply of labor continued until the early 196Os. Population growth in the second stage which caused by high fertility during the post Korean War baby boom period induced an eventual increase in the labor supply with time lag of more than fifteen years. Younger persons born during baby boom period were flooded the labor market. Fortunately, job opportunities were expanded more rapidly than the labor force supply because high rates of economic growth and speedy industrialization were continued until the later half of 1970s. Unemployment, therefore, decreased dramatically during this period. The effect of third stage which is characterized as mitigated population growth due to birth control has appeared in the labor market since late 1970s. The growth rate of labor force has been going down and the proportion of younger workers was also been decreasing. From the early 1980s, furthermore, partial disharmony between supply of and demand for the younger workers is closing up. Less educated younger workers who works at low wage are lacking while more educated youngers who want to work at high wage are being excess, because a lot of younger prefer higher education rather than productive job. It is expected that the structural inharmony will be diversified in the future in Korea. The labor force will be changed to middleaged, highly educated and womenized till year 2000, and, after then, to old-aged. On the demand side, industries and jobs will transferred to be labor-saving and soft. These structural changes of labor supply and demand will not matching in time. Aggregate supply of labor force will be steadily increasing more rapidly than aggregate demand for labor until year 2000, and this trend will continue to the first one or two decades of the 2lth century because the persons born dufing the baby boom pariod are being eligible couples in recent. Therefore, conclusion is that appropriate manpower development policy as well as sustained birth control policy is necessary for harmonizing the structural unbalance and the disequilibrium between aggregate labor supply and demand in the future.

• Economic Analysis
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.30-69
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• 2019

This paper analyzes the effects of trade on demand for labor of trading firms in Korea. We apply system GMM methodology to estimate the effects of imports and exports on employment of Korean manufacturing firms using firm-level data from the Survey of Business Activities of Statistics Korea between 2006 and 2014. According to our estimated results, for firms with high-productivity, exports have a positive and significant effect on the labor demand, while other firms do not show any such significant effects. Furthermore, our results show that offshoring mitigates the positive effects of exports on employment, since tasks within the firms can be relocated abroad. On the other hand, an increase in imports reduces demand for labor because labor is replaced with low-priced imported inputs. Also, when firms partake in global outsourcing, the negative effects of imports are mitigated as those firms expand their production by enhancing their efficiency in the process of offshoring. Therefore, our results suggest that it is important to consider heterogeneous firm productivity as well as offshoring in analyzing the effect of trade on labor demand of firms.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.171-188
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• 2020

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), first identified in China in December 2019, has widely spread worldwide and is an ongoing pandemic. It is expected that the ripple effect of COVID-19 on the global economy including the agricultural sector will increase substantially if not properly controlled shortly. This study examines the potential impact of COVID-19 on the Korean beef cattle sector and farm labor demand for Korean beef cattle using a dynamic partial equilibrium model. The agricultural production value and farm labor demand for Korean beef cattle in the scenario assuming pessimistic GDP growth rate (-1.2% in 2020) with no direct supply shocks fell by up to 4.00% and 0.67%, respectively, compared to the baseline which represents the future without COVID-19 outbreak. On the other hand, the agricultural production value and farm labor demand for Korean beef cattle in the scenario assuming both pessimistic GDP growth rate and supply shocks (-12.7% beef imports and + 2.4% feed cost in 2020) increased by up to 12.08% and 1.99%, respectively, compared to the baseline.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.147-159
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• 2011

In this paper the demand and supply of labor are forecasted over the next 10 years for customized nurturing human resource focused on Manufacturing Industry in Chung-Nam Province. Despite that the industrial structure is rapidly changing, industrial labors are nurturing on the basis of past industrial structure. This research is conducted for reducing mismatched labors throughout forecasting human resources until 2020. As a practical approach, the BLS Methodology is partially utilized. And the previous researches and official statistics data are reviewed. In conclusion, this study presents that more human resources on Manufacturing Industry than other Industries will be needed in Chung-Nam province. In details, it shows that there will be required more Industrial labors for strategic industries for examples, Audio and Video related industry, and Car related industry which is propelling by overall local government. In additions, policy implications are developed by analyzing current status and forecasting the labor demand and supply in the Chung-Nam Manufacturing sector.

• Korean Business Review
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• v.2
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• pp.141-169
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• 1989

Most of the theories of collective bargaining outcomes start with a set of economic variables. The economic constraints, pressures, and incentives influence the bargaining power relationship between labor union and employer. In this paper, the critical macro and micro economic variables that need to be considered in analyzing the economic context of collective bargaining power relationship is outlined. The focus is on the role that economic forces play in shaping the results of bargaining, that is the outcome of negotiations. In this study, the elasticity of the demand for labor is introduced as one of the most important economic aspects that influence bargaining power. Unions will be most successful in increasing wages when they enjoy an inelastic demand for labor. If the demand for labor is not naturally inelastic, some institutional arrangement for "taking wages out of competition" must be sought. Inflation, business cycle, and income policy are influential in shaping both parties' goals and expectations as well. In addition to the analysis of the economic variables, the nature of power is diagonized with some introductory notions about its care and feeding before proceeding to the details of the above issues.

• Journal of Korean Society for Quality Management
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.11-21
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• 1993

In this paper, we survey the current status of measurement labor in Korean Industry. At the same time we try to predit the demand and supply of measurement labor to suggest policy measures for equilibrium in measurement labor market. We use a general production function for the prediction which include a set of general homethetic production function.