The Korea Employers Federation announced Sunday that 88.6 percent of companies surveyed plan to offer summer vacation this year, based on a poll of 674 firms nationwide with five or more employees. The remaining 11.4 percent said they allow workers to take annual leave throughout the year without a designated vacation period.
Among companies offering summer vacation, the average duration came to 3.8 days. By company size, 65.5 percent of firms with 300 or more employees said they grant five or more days, while 48.5 percent of firms with fewer than 300 employees said they grant three days — the most common response in that category. Among larger firms, 20.0 percent said they grant three days, while 32.4 percent of smaller firms said they grant five or more days.
The survey also examined how companies schedule their summer vacation periods. In the manufacturing sector, 69.7 percent said they concentrate vacation into a short window of about one week, while 64.6 percent of non-manufacturing firms said they spread vacation over a broader period of one to two months. Companies that opt for a concentrated break tend to schedule it around late July and early August.
Among companies that schedule vacation either within a single week or on a rotating two-week basis — accounting for 67.8 percent of respondents — early August was the most common period, cited by 67.5 percent, followed by late July at 23.8 percent.
Some 53.0 percent of companies offering summer vacation said they plan to pay a summer vacation allowance this year, down 1.0 percentage point from 54.0 percent the previous year. Larger firms with 300 or more employees were more likely to offer the allowance at 61.0 percent, compared with 52.1 percent among smaller firms — a gap of 8.9 percentage points.
The share of companies planning to implement an annual leave encouragement program this year rose to 62.0 percent, up 2.2 percentage points from 59.8 percent the year before.
When asked how they expect second-half business conditions to compare with the first half, 50.2 percent of respondents — the largest share — said they expect conditions to remain similar. The share expecting conditions to worsen fell to 37.1 percent, down 9.7 percentage points from 46.8 percent in last year's survey, while those expecting improvement slipped to 12.7 percent from 15.6 percent over the same period.
Meanwhile, data submitted to People Power Party lawmaker Kim Seung-su by Incheon International Airport Corp. projects that about 3.88 million passengers — roughly 228,000 per day — will pass through Incheon Airport during the summer travel peak period from July 25 to Aug. 10, a roughly 4.7 percent increase from the previous year.
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