A survey of the main thrusts of management plans among corporations that have drawn up plans for next year found that 41% of corporations with 300 or more regular workers are set to pursue austerity management.
This was released on the 30th by the Korea Enterprises Federation and Southern Post after a joint survey of CEOs and executives at 229 corporations with 30 or more employees conducted from the 10th to the 21st.
The response rate for an austerity management stance among corporations with 300 or more employees was 14.9 percentage points higher than the proportion of respondents for an austerity stance among corporations with fewer than 300 employees (26.1%) and 9.6 percentage points higher than the average (31.4%).
Among corporations with 300 or more employees, the shares for holding steady and for expansionary management in next year's plan were both 29.5%. For corporations with fewer than 300 employees, holding steady was 45% and expansionary management was 28.8%.
However, the average share answering for an austerity stance was found to be 18.3 percentage points lower than in last year's survey. Over the same period, the share for holding steady rose 11.5 percentage points to 39.5%. Expansionary management rose 6.8 percentage points to 29.1%.
Among corporations that answered that next year's plans would take an austerity direction, a multiple-response question on concrete implementation plans showed workforce rationalization as the most common at 61.1%.
KEF said it is the first time in nine years since the 2017 outlook survey that corporations pursuing austerity cited workforce rationalization as their top implementation plan.
Following workforce rationalization, responses on implementation plans were enterprise-wide cost cuts (53.7%), reduced new investment (37%), business unit restructuring (29.6%), reduced production scale (5.6%), and asset sales (3.7%), in that order.
Among corporations that answered next year's plans would be expansionary, the most common implementation plan was increased investment (34%). That was followed by entry into new businesses (24%), cultivating overseas markets (22%), mergers and acquisitions (12%), and increased hiring (8%).
In this survey, corporations with 300 or more employees said they would reduce domestic investment and increase overseas investment next year compared with this year, and reduce hiring.
Hiring plans for next year among corporations with 300 or more employees were found to be 11.5% for a sharp reduction, 29.5% for a slight reduction, 36.1% at this year's level, 21.3% for a slight increase, and 1.6% for a sharp increase.
For corporations with fewer than 300 employees, the responses were 3.6% for a sharp reduction, 13.5% for a slight reduction, 61.3% at this year's level, 21.6% for a slight increase, and 0% for a sharp increase, with maintaining this year's level the most common answer.
For investment plans, 40% of corporations with 300 or more employees said they would reduce domestic investment, while 45.7% said they would increase overseas investment. For corporations with fewer than 300 employees, a majority answered that both domestic and overseas investment would be maintained at this year's level.
In this survey, 52.8% of responding corporations projected that the domestic economic recovery would gather pace starting next year. By response, the second half of 2026 was 31% and the first half of 2026 was found to be 21.8%.
Those answering that the recovery would gather pace after 2027 was found to be 39.3%, while those saying it has already turned to recovery was 4.8%. Other responses were 3.1%.
With major institutions such as the Bank of Korea and the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics & Trade (KIET) projecting Korea's economic growth rate for next year at 1.8–1.8%, the share of corporations expecting growth of at least 1.5% but less than 2.0% was highest at 49.8%. Less than 1.5% was 28.4%, 2.0%–2.5% was 19.2%, and 2.5% or higher was found to be 2.6%.