Number of new companies inches up in 2018: data

All News 12:00 December 12, 2019

SEJONG, Dec. 12 (Yonhap) -- The number of newly established companies in South Korea rose 0.7 percent on-year in 2018, data showed Thursday.

In 2018, some 920,000 new companies were created, up 7,000 from the year before, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

Employees working for these companies reached over 1.36 million last year, a gain of 40,000 people from a year earlier.

Although newly launched companies edged up, the total number of firms that closed during the one-year period rose 11.5 percent on-year to 698,000, the data showed.

The statistical office said there were some 6.25 million operational companies last year, up 3.3 percent from a year earlier.

Among operational companies, 14.7 percent were new businesses, down 0.4 percentage point from 2017, it said.

The data also showed that 65 percent of all newly launched businesses in 2017 were still open in 2018, while only 29.2 percent of those that opened in 2013 survived until 2018.

The data showed more than 80 percent of electricity, gas and transportation businesses reached their second year in 2018, while estimates for the finance and insurance, wholesale and retail, and art and sports sectors were just over the 50 percent mark.