South Korea's industries relying on cheap labor face nowhere to go

South Korea's Youngone Trading Company recently had a local worker's request for a salary increase in its Bangladesh factory. Although the situation has eased somewhat and some factories have started work again, local business owners still do not know when they will erupt again. ** Extremely disturbed.

In addition, a Korean textile and apparel factory in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, recently raised the minimum wage for the local government, and raised the average salary of local employees by about 20%, but due to the end of the year, the local consumer price index. The increase was nearly 11%. Employees have already proposed to raise wages in line with price increases. Recently, the number of newly-increased foreign companies has increased. It is expected that the demand for labor will increase significantly. If they do not meet the requirements, there may be a lot of labor to quit.

South Korean companies that have recently entered Southeast Asia are facing the challenges of local workers in demanding salary increases, demonstrations, and other manpower management.

Currently, there are more than 40 Korean companies in South-East Asia, more than 40 in the Philippines, more than 30 in the Philippines, more than 120 in Vietnam, and more than 30 in Cambodia. According to the Korea Textile Industry Federation, more than 700 illegal cases occurred in Vietnam in 2008. The Vietnamese government is usually in a relatively negative position regarding the labor disputes faced by foreign companies that set up factories in other countries. * The problem of unscheduled production often occurs.

South Korean garments, fiber clothing and other industries have been setting up factories in Southeast Asia since the 1990s. Burma and Bangladesh have spent relatively cheap labor. This has enabled Korean companies that have set up factories in mainland China to relocate their factories to Vietnam and Indonesia. Turning to Myanmar and Bangladesh, even in Asia, Bangladesh, which has the lowest level of pay, has also seen demonstrations requiring salary adjustments. As a result, companies that set up factories in Southeast Asia face the loss of the “last bastion” and have no idea where to go.

Korea’s Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) analyzed that the main cause of the recent salary increase in low-cost labor countries is the imbalance in labor supply and demand. Prices of major metropolitan cities such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, and India have risen so much that they expect that workers from counties and cities outside the city will not be able to afford prices and return to their nests. This will result in a severe shortage of labor. In addition, companies from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan will visit the country. With the addition of new factories in Southeast Asia, the company has a lot of labor, and if the operators are eager to catch up with the goods, if they do not meet the requirements for salary adjustment, shipping will cause delays and other issues, which has greatly reduced the ability of the industry to negotiate.