Reduce the regulatory burden on economic activity and monitor progress in regulatory reform. Restrictive product market regulation hinders competition and productivity gains, particularly in services.
Actions taken: The government announced the “first permission, ex-post regulation” system in September 2017. In 2018, fin-tech start-ups were exempted from regulations for two years if the government judges their services to be innovative.
Recommendations: Introduce a comprehensive negative-list regulatory system. Improve regulatory quality by subjecting proposed legislation initiated by the National Assembly to regulatory impact assessments. Reduce the role of administrative guidance. Phase out entry barriers for large firms in business lines reserved for SMEs, which are primarily in the service sector.
Strengthen policies to support employment of women and older persons. The employment rate of women is 20 percentage points below the rate of Korean men, the fourth-largest gap in the OECD. Employees leave firms at around age 50 on average.
Actions taken: In 2017, the government began to investigate firms suspected of not allowing their employees to take maternity leave. A 2018 law reduced maximum working hours from 68 to 52 per week as part of the government’s goal to reduce annual working time to around 1 800 hours. The government is expanding training programmes aimed at older workers and subsidies for those who participate.
Recommendations: Enhance childcare quality by making accreditation mandatory and strengthening competition by relaxing fee ceilings on private childcare institutions and entry barriers. Promote a flexible wage system based on performance and job category, while abolishing firms’ right to set a mandatory retirement age.
Reform EPL and break down labour market dualism. Dualism drives inequality, by creating large wage gaps between regular and non-regular workers, and reduces productivity growth by discouraging firm-based training. It also has a negative impact on female employment.
Actions taken: The government aims to transform the contracts of 205 000 non-regular workers in the public sector to regular status by 2020. In 2018, the subsidy to firms that convert non-regular workers to regular status was raised from KRW 600 000 per month to KRW 800 000 (USD 741).
Recommendations: Break down dualism by relaxing employment protection for regular workers, in particular by simplifying and accelerating the remedy procedures for unfair dismissal and making it more transparent, and expanding social insurance coverage and training for non-regular workers.
Improve the efficiency of the tax system and strengthen the social safety net. The tax system should be made more growth-friendly, while social spending, which as a share of GDP is half of the OECD average, continues to increase.
Actions taken: Social spending is scheduled to rise at a 9% annual rate over 2017-21. Subsidies for parents with a child up to age five and for unemployed young people were introduced in 2018. The Basic Pension was increased to KRW 300 000 (USD 260) in April 2019, while maintaining its coverage at 70% of the elderly. The corporate income tax rate on large firms was increased from 22% to 25% in 2017.
Recommendations: Gradually raise government revenue to finance rising social spending, focusing on taxes with a less negative impact on growth, such as the VAT and environment-related taxes. Focus the Basic Pension on the elderly with the lowest incomes to reduce the relative poverty rate for the population over age 65, which is the highest in the OECD at 46%, and expand the coverage of the National Pension Scheme.
Reduce producer support to agriculture. Support for producers, which is almost three times the OECD average, imposes a large burden on consumers. Assistance to farmers is provided primarily through market price support, which distorts the structure of agriculture.
Actions taken: Variable subsidies for rice in 2018 fell to one-third of the 2017 level. To balance the supply and demand for rice, the government is reducing the area of rice paddies, encouraging diversification of production, and stimulating demand.
Recommendations: Phase out import barriers imposed on agricultural products and commodity-specific support to allow markets to play a greater role in allocating production resources to higher value-added products. Shift the composition of support from market price measures toward direct support. Promote farm consolidation by reforming regulations on land conversion.
