6 out of 10 Companies Say This Year's Seol Market Has Worsened Compared to Last Year

The proportion of companies evaluating this year's Lunar New Year business conditions as worse than the previous year reached the highest level in the past five years. The percentage of companies planning to pay Lunar New Year bonuses also declined compared to last year.

On the 19th, the Korea Employers Federation announced the results of the '2025 Lunar New Year Holiday Status Survey' conducted on 602 companies nationwide with five or more employees. According to the survey, 60.5% of companies responded that their business conditions during the Lunar New Year period (as of January) had "worsened compared to the previous year." This is the highest figure in the past five years since 2021.

The response that this year's Lunar New Year business conditions "improved compared to the previous year" was 4.4%, the lowest in the past five years. The proportion of companies stating that the business conditions were "similar to the previous year" was 35.2%.

The percentage of companies planning to pay Lunar New Year bonuses this year was 62.4%, a decrease of 2.1% compared to last year. By company size, the proportion of companies paying bonuses was higher among companies with 300 or more employees (78.8%) than those with fewer than 300 employees (60.3%).

Meanwhile, with the government's designation of a temporary holiday extending this year's Lunar New Year holiday to a maximum of six days including the weekend, differences in the number of holiday days by company size were also observed. Among companies responding that they would have five or fewer days off during this Lunar New Year holiday, 26% were companies with fewer than 300 employees, higher than the 15% of companies with 300 or more employees.

Companies that reported taking seven or more days off were also higher among companies with 300 or more employees at 42%, compared to 28.5% for companies with fewer than 300 employees. Among companies offering seven or more days off, exceeding the usual six days of holidays this year, 31.8% cited "to provide convenience to employees" as the reason.