AmorePacific has highest ratio of female workers among Korean firms

SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's top cosmetics maker AmorePacific Corp. has the highest ratio of female employees among major local firms, a corporate tracker said Thursday.

AmorePacific had 8,117 female workers as of the end of December last year, which accounted for 74.8 percent of its total workforce at 10,800, according to Korea CXO Institute.

The institute attributed AmorePacific's high percentage to its business catering mainly to women.

Hana Bank came next with 60.5 percent, followed by home appliance vendor SK Magic Co. with 56.4 percent, the state-run Industrial Bank of Korea with 54.5 percent and Mirae Asset Life Insurance Co. with 51.4 percent.

South Korea's top employer Samsung Electronics Co. had 28,408 female workers as of end-December, or 25.9 percent of its 109,490 workforce.

Samsung Electronics' ratio was down from 33 percent 10 years earlier.

Leading automaker Hyundai Motor Co. had 4,006 female employees, or a mere 5.6 percent of its 72,020 workers, with its smaller affiliate Kia Corp. hiring 1,355 woman workers, or 3.9 percent of its headcount of 35,115.

As of end-December, 43 major South Korea companies had 82,000 female workers, which amounted to 23.2 percent of their combined workforce of 355,000, according to the institute.