By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
An increasing number of foreigners have changed the landscape of the restaurant business here, with confectionary shops and restaurants specializing in foreign foods seeing explosive growth.
Statistics Korea released the latest data on the service industry from 2008 Monday, which showed that Koreans' diet is changing. Confectionery businesses saw a 51.4 percent growth, while foreign restaurants and cafeterias jumped 69.6 percent.
The office attributed it to changing diet and an increasing number of foreign residents. The number of foreigners in Korea recorded 854,007 in 2008, up 11.6 percent from 2007.
The statistics showed that social trends such as falling birthrates and a rapidly aging society are changing the landscape of the services industry.
Wholesalers of children's garments, for example, saw sales decrease by 10 percent, reflecting the fall in the birthrate, or the number of babies born per woman, to 1.19 in 2008 from 1.3 in 2001.
Nursing home facilities for senior citizens, meanwhile, saw sales soar by 88.2 percent, with private nursing services sales growing 2.5 times.
Businesses serving the increasing number of working moms are also flourishing. Daycare centers saw profits grow by 28.8 percent as more working moms are in need of such services.
Beauty services are booming as the society has come to focus on how one looks. Sales at skincare services grew by 30.5 percent.
Supermarkets and convenience chain-stores grew, each seeing sales increase by around 17 percent, but small retail stores withered. The number of such shops decreased by 4.6 percent as many closed down.
Online shops grew by 18.1 percent on the back of IT development but it seems to be negatively affecting audio and video rental services. Such businesses saw sales dwindle by 14.9 percent. Magazine sales also dropped by 8.6 percent.
The statistics also showed that businesses are increasingly outsourcing cleaning and security services. Cleaning service businesses, for instance, saw sales grow 23.5 percent.
Foreign language institutes had sales surge 25.2 percent as Koreans' eagerness to learn English continued. Education businesses providing online classes also saw sales rise 38.1 percent, while home tutoring services dropped 3.6 percent.
Among health services, medical checkup clinics expanded noticeably in 2008, with sales growing by 33.2 percent.
chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr
|
'600만명 학살 지휘' 잔인한 인물의 뒷얘기 공개
