KCCI Selects 586 'Best Small and Medium Enterprises to Work For'

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Korea Employment Information Service, Korea Enterprise Data, job portal Saramin, and Job Planet jointly selected and announced 586 "Best Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to Work For" on the 2nd.

The five organizations, including the Korea Chamber of Commerce, formed an evaluation committee and first conducted a quantitative evaluation of 5.2 million SMEs nationwide based on sales, profitability, credit rating, etc., selecting 13,000 companies. Then, through a qualitative evaluation where employees self-assessed their companies, a final 586 companies were selected.

The evaluation categories were divided into eight themes: welfare and salary, CEO vision and philosophy, growth potential, work-life balance, promotion opportunities, corporate culture, executive competency, and employee recommendation rate.

This year’s top SMEs in the eight categories included Didim365 Co., Ltd., C&G Hightech Co., Ltd., M2I Corporation Co., Ltd., Woosung Yanghaeng Co., Ltd., InnoRed Ltd., Towa Korea Co., Ltd., Perenbell Co., Ltd., and Heunga Machinery Co., Ltd.

For example, InnoRed alleviates employees’ commuting difficulties by designating one day per month as "Late Day" and provides a two-hour lunch break every Friday to ensure sufficient rest.

74% of the best SMEs to work for are concentrated in the metropolitan area (Seoul 327 companies, Gyeonggi 111 companies). This is followed by Daejeon (35), Busan (19), Chungnam (16), Gyeongnam (14), Gwangju (12), Chungbuk (12), Incheon (11), Gyeongbuk (11), Daegu (10), Gangwon (3), Ulsan (2), Jeonnam (2), Jeonbuk (1), and Sejong (1).

By industry, the IT, web, and telecommunications sector (185) was the largest. The Korea Chamber of Commerce explained that the active startup of small and medium-sized IT companies and the relatively young average age of employees emphasize the social trend of pursuing work-life balance.

Following were manufacturing and chemical (177), distribution, trade, and transportation (50), service industry (46), media and design (42), construction (42), medical and pharmaceutical (26), research and consulting (13), and education (5).

Since 2018, the five organizations including the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Employment Information Service have annually selected and announced the best SMEs to work for to help resolve the manpower supply-demand mismatch between young job seekers and SMEs.

Detailed information about the best SMEs to work for is disclosed on the respective websites. For companies currently recruiting, applicants can apply for jobs immediately.

Park Dongmin, Head of the Membership Division at the Korea Chamber of Commerce, said, “We will discover SMEs with excellent working environments to help resolve the manpower mismatch between young job seekers and SMEs.”