Korean labor law loophole leaves microbusiness workers unprotected

An image generated by artificial intelligence

Jung Woo-jin remembers Christmas Eve 2024 as the day his manager handed over the car keys. Jung, a pseudonym for a man who worked at a relocation agency for foreign executives from October 2024 to January 2026, said the manager ordered him to drive the vehicle to the supervisor's home and park it in the underground garage ahead of a night out drinking.

The personal errands escalated as time went on. Over the next year, the manager made Jung plan a private vacation for his boss in Europe, book hotels and rental cars, and research local traffic laws. Jung also had to move personal belongings and settle utility bills at the supervisor's residence.

Jung eventually quit and reported the abuse to the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Office. Authorities, however, rejected his complaint. While Jung’s company had six employees when he joined, officials determined that high turnover brought the average during his tenure to 4.66 workers. Because Korea’s workplace harassment laws apply only to businesses with at least five regular employees, the calculation left Jung in a regulatory gap without recourse.

Paradox behind 4.66 worker threshold

Jung was stunned by the decision. “If it’s a person, it’s one person. What is 0.66?” he asked, questioning a system that allows a human being to be mathematically divided. He argued that victims should not be forced to bear the burden of a shrinking workforce, putting their employer outside the law’s jurisdiction. “Workers at businesses with fewer than five people are human beings too,” he said.

The exclusion of microbusinesses from these protections stems from government concerns that small-scale employers cannot handle the financial burden or follow-up measures required by harassment claims. Labor advocates say this rationale ignores the reality that abuse is often more severe in small, isolated workplaces where employees have no internal human resources departments to assist them.

Verbal abuse, forced chores in small workplaces

The case exposes a broader legal gap that leaves workers at microbusinesses with little formal recourse. Park Eun-jin, a pseudonym for a 44-year-old woman, worked at a large bookstore in Gyeonggi Province for nearly six years without paid annual leave.

The harassment escalated when the store manager’s husband began interfering with operations. He hurled profanities at Park in front of customers and forced her to carry a walkie-talkie so he could monitor her work.

Park quit. “I’d never been insulted like that in front of everyone before,” she said. “Even after I left the bookstore, I suffered from depression for more than a year and couldn’t even leave my house.”

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Park Jun-seo, 36, faced similar harassment at an office supply store in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. The store owner lived above the shop. Every day, the owner brought down the family’s household garbage, including food waste, delivery containers and packaging, and made Park sort it for disposal with the company’s trash. Park said he was severely overworked.

A table generated by artificial intelligence shows key provisions of the Labor Standards Act.

Systemic abuse, limited support for microbusiness workers

Recent data shows these cases are not isolated incidents. A survey of 1,000 workers by Gapjil 119, a labor rights group, found that 53.1 percent of harassment victims at workplaces with fewer than five workers described the abuse as serious, compared with 43.4 percent of all workers. More than 80 percent of workers at small workplaces said reporting the abuse was difficult, compared with 68.8 percent of all workers.

In the survey, none of the harassment victims at workplaces with fewer than five workers said they had received treatment or counseling. The figure was 16.7 percent at large corporations.

“After leaving the bookstore, my depression was so severe that I went to a hospital, but I couldn’t afford the 80,000 won ($54) to 90,000 won counseling fee per session, so I wasn’t able to receive proper treatment,” Park Eun-jin said, in a typical result for microbusiness workers.

Labor experts said the government should amend the Labor Standards Act to protect vulnerable workers. Kim Sung-hee, a professor at the Korea University Graduate School of Labor Studies, said harassment often grows worse in smaller workplaces, where employees have little room to escape abusive managers.

Kim Jong-jin, head of the Working Citizens Research Institute, said microbusinesses can face practical difficulties when they try to separate a victim from a perpetrator during an investigation. Still, he said the government and employers should find workable alternatives.

“We can consider various alternatives, such as placing employees on paid leave until the workplace harassment investigation concludes,” Kim said.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.