8 in 10 workers say Korea unwelcoming to employees with disabilities: survey

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Nearly 8 in 10 workers say Korea is unwelcoming to workers with disabilities, a survey by a civic labor group found, underscoring a gap between steadily rising employment figures and the reality faced by many workers with disabilities.

According to the poll released Sunday by nonprofit advocacy group Gapjil 119, 76.7 percent of 1,000 respondents aged 19 or older said Korea is not a society where people with disabilities can work comfortably.

The sentiment was strongest at small private firms with fewer than five employees, at 85.7 percent, compared to 70.3 percent at larger companies with 300 or more employees, and 69.9 percent at public institutions. Women were more likely to say that workplaces were unwelcoming, with 81.2 percent agreeing that it was a problem, compared to 72.5 percent of men.

Nearly half of respondents — 46.2 percent — said their workplace harbors bias or a discriminatory atmosphere toward hiring people with disabilities, while 51 percent said their workplace lacks barrier-free spaces.

Derogatory or mocking language toward people with disabilities was also a reality for some, with 17.4 percent of respondents saying they have heard such expressions at work.

The results came despite the share of workers with disabilities in Korea rising slowly but steadily in official figures in recent years. In 2024, 3.21 percent of employees had a disability, up 0.67 percentage points from a decade earlier, according to the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The private sector saw disabled people account for 3.03 percent of overall employment, 0.07 percentage points short of the legal mandate, the narrowest gap since the quota system launched in 1991.

Korea mandates that at least 3.1 percent of a private firm's workforce must be people with disabilities, with the threshold set at 3.8 percent for public institutions. Employers with 50 or more full-time workers are required to meet the quota, while those with 100 or more who fall short must pay a fine.

Workers with severe disabilities accounted for 35.8 percent of all workers with disabilities in 2024, up 5.9 percentage points from 2020, while the share of women in that group rose 3 percentage points to 28.7 percent over the same period.