Less than 60 percent of big companies allow employees to work remotely

[Image source: Gettyimagesbank]

The share of South Korean large companies with telecommuting programs, which once topped 90 percent, is now below 60 percent. As the Covid-19 pandemic fades, jobs that allow employees to work from home are rapidly declining or disappearing, with nearly 65 percent of these companies planning to return to pre-pandemic working arrangements.

A recent survey conducted by the Korea Enterprises Federation (KEF) on the status of remote work at Korea’s top 50 companies by sales on Sunday found that 58.1 percent of the 31 companies that responded to the survey had work from home programs while 41.9 percent did not. As much as 38.7 percent of the companies surveyed said they had implemented telecommuting after the pandemic but currently do not offer the option. This trend likely comes as an increasing number of companies stopped allowing employees to work from home as Covid-19 restrictions eased, the KEF said. According to the federation, the proportion of companies implementing telework was 91.5 percent in 2021 and 72.7 percent in 2022.

Of the companies that still allow remote work, 61.9 percent said they were implementing it selectively only for frontline employees or basing it on individual application. Providing the option on a rotational basis and at the individual team’s discretion accounted for 19 percent respectively.

“With the end of the pandemic crisis, the practice of employees taking turns to work remotely has been reduced,” an official from the KEF said. “The main form of telework nowadays is selecting those who need to work from home or allowing it on a limited basis by receiving applications as needed.”