▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and provides six news items tailored to each reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ Turning point for the "yellow envelope law": Since the revised Trade Union Act took effect in March this year, courts have issued conflicting decisions in injunction cases over whether prime contractors qualify as employers. A review ruling on splitting a bargaining unit was suspended, while a request concerning a public notice of bargaining demands was denied, putting the standard of proof for "damage difficult to recover" at the center of the dispute.
■ AI infrastructure funding strain: Oracle sent a notice invoking a force majeure clause, saying it would delay rental payments for a New Mexico data center. With operations expected to be pushed back at least a year because of local opposition to power facilities, a broader reassessment of AI data center loans and lease agreements appears to be spreading.
■ New normal for Treasury yields: U.S. Treasury yields have repeatedly broken through 5%, long regarded as a psychological resistance level, with nearly all maturities settling around that mark. Analysts say yields in the 5% range could become structurally entrenched as AI investment pushes up prices.
[Corporate CEO News of Interest]
1. Bargaining-Unit Split Suspended, Notice Injunction Denied: "Damage Difficult to Recover" Is Key
- Key summary: Division 14 of the Seoul Administrative Court on the 18th of this month granted injunction requests filed by POSCO and Donghee Auto in their suits against the National Labor Relations Commission seeking to overturn review rulings on splitting bargaining units. It is the first case in which an injunction has been granted against a review ruling on a prime contractor's bargaining-unit split since the yellow envelope law took effect. By contrast, Divisions 3 and 11 of the Seoul Administrative Court successively denied injunction requests filed by Kukdong Engineering & Construction and Joongheung Construction concerning public notices of bargaining demands. Park Eun-jung, an attorney at Bae, Kim & Lee, said it is important to specify the actual changes in labor-management relations that would result from enforcement and the difficulty of reversing them, rather than citing abstract disadvantages. The question of whether prime contractors qualify as employers is to be addressed in the main proceedings.
2. Oracle Says It Will Delay Data Center Rent, Notifying Blue Owl Capital Unilaterally
- Key summary: Oracle sent a notice invoking a force majeure clause to Stack Infrastructure, a Blue Owl Capital subsidiary and the developer of the New Mexico data center known as Project Jupiter, saying it would postpone the start of rental payments. Last year Oracle signed a five-year, $300 billion (about 407.7 trillion won) cloud contract with OpenAI and concluded data center lease agreements totaling 4.5 gigawatts in New Mexico, Texas and elsewhere. Securing power has run into obstacles as plans to use gas turbines met local opposition and failed to obtain air pollution prevention permits. Despite Oracle's explanations, investor anxiety has grown, with the price of five-year credit default swaps — derivatives used to buy and sell default risk — rising to a record 231.77 as of the 25th, while Bloomberg estimated that debt tied to the project had fallen below 90 cents on the dollar.
3. 5% U.S. Treasury Yields Become the New Normal: "30-Year Will Top 6% This Year"
- Key summary: The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield has been trading in the 5.10% range and rose as high as 5.22% on the 24th, its highest level since June 2007, while the 30-year yield hit 5.501% the same day, its highest since 2004. In a Bloomberg survey of 173 financial market experts, 53% of respondents said the 30-year yield would exceed 6% this year. Cited causes include a surge in international oil prices amid U.S.-Iran tensions, a sharp rise in demand for AI investment funding, the U.S. federal government's massive fiscal deficit and the Federal Reserve's tightening stance. Still, caution persists: Karen Ward of JPMorgan Asset Management predicted it is unlikely the 10-year yield will climb much above 5%.
[Corporate CEO Reference News]
4. 107 Industrial Technology Leaks Abroad Over Five Years, 4 in 10 in Semiconductors
- Key summary: The National Intelligence Service detected 107 cases of industrial technology being leaked abroad from 2021 to 2025, of which 40, or 37% of the total, involved semiconductors. Displays followed with 21 cases, electrical and electronics with 10, automobiles with seven and shipbuilding with six, while leaks of national core technologies totaled 31. By company size, cases involving small and medium-sized enterprises numbered 64, about twice the 33 involving large companies, and 10 cases were detected at universities and research institutes. Koo Ja-keun, a lawmaker of the People Power Party, said countries around the world are moving to protect core technologies by strengthening penalties and easing evidentiary requirements, and that Korea also needs to put more comprehensive measures in place.
- Key summary: Lee Yong-bae, chief executive of Hyundai Rotem, said at InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin on the 22nd that the company has been building capabilities in AI-based autonomous driving, rail technology and hydrogen, and that it would build on its record of exporting 56,000 cars to 40 countries. After delivering high-speed rail cars based on the EMU-260 to Uzbekistan in 2024 in a deal worth 270 billion won, Hyundai Rotem is accelerating talks on a second export contract. The company has also set a target of winning 7 trillion to 8 trillion won in a project by New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority to replace aging subway cars, covering 2,390 cars and worth about 10 trillion won. With the 440 double-decker cars ordered in February last year drawing favorable reviews, the company also appears to be putting weight on high-speed rail exports to Morocco.
6. The Assumption That AI Cuts Jobs Breaks Down at Amazon and Google
- Key summary: An analysis by Blind, an anonymous workplace community, of some 50,000 U.S. members who changed their company settings after switching jobs between January last year and August this year found that the assumption AI reduces jobs held true at Intel but not at Amazon or Google. Amazon, Google, Apple and Meta showed a "revolving door" pattern with heavy outflows and inflows alike, while Nvidia, AMD and OpenAI saw inflows far outpace outflows. Intel, by contrast, was classified as having "large" outflows and "small" inflows, and PayPal and Coinbase were also identified as companies with net outflows. Blind said Big Tech firms have restructured their workforce composition rather than cutting staff across the board, and that job seekers should consider whether their own role falls within a growth area rather than focusing on a company's name.
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