Korea to Let Mid-Sized Firms Keep Benefits for Five Years After Outgrowing Status

* 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.

1. Mid-Sized Firms Get Grace Period After Reaching Large-Company Status, Keeping Benefits for Five Years

Key points: A grace period will be created to let mid-sized companies retain that status for an initial five years even after they meet the criteria for large corporations. The measure follows a judgment that regulations such as bans on cross-shareholding pile up as companies grow larger, producing side effects in which firms halt expansion or revert to small and medium-sized enterprise status, and a revision of the Mid-Sized Enterprise Act is being pursued. The government will pursue the Decacorn Project, worth a combined 1 trillion won ($700 million), from next year through 2035 to secure 10 leapfrog technologies in materials, components and systems centered on mid-sized firms, and it will also support an AI transition at about 350 mid-sized manufacturing prime contractors, or half of the total, by 2030. With incentives for mid-sized firms to grow further strengthened, job seekers considering employment at such companies have rising expectations for better pay and growth potential.

2. Three Deaths in a Year Brings a Fine of 5% of Operating Profit; 29 Firms Would Have Qualified Under Past Data

Key points: The National Assembly plenary session passed an amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Act that imposes fines of up to 5% of operating profit on employers whose safety and health violations lead to the deaths of three or more workers in industrial accidents within a year. With 29 companies recording three or more deaths a year during the three years since the Serious Accidents Punishment Act took effect, it marks the first effective economic sanction of its kind. The amendment also writes into law the right of subcontracted workers to demand a work stoppage directly from the prime contractor or to evacuate on their own, and it expands the grounds for the labor minister to order a work stoppage to include cases where a worker is unconscious or whose survival is unclear. For job seekers preparing for manufacturing and construction careers, the environment now makes company-level safety standards a key indicator in choosing an employer.

3. Chip Supercycle Pushes September Exports Past $120 Billion for First Time; $1 Trillion Year Possible as Early as November

Key points: Exports came to $120.94 billion in September, topping $120 billion for the first time, while semiconductor exports surged 262.8% from a year earlier to clear $60 billion for the first time. Cumulative exports of $814.5 billion from January through September already exceed the $709.3 billion in total exports recorded for all of last year, the previous record, and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said annual exports of $1 trillion are likely to be reached by November. Memory chip exports jumped 358.6% over the same period, to $54.07 billion from $11.79 billion, and semiconductors accounted for 49.9% of total exports. With the chip supercycle continuing, demand is expanding for workers in related roles including memory and system semiconductors, a trend read as a positive signal for job seekers targeting the chip sector.

4. "HBM Average Selling Price to Rise 121% Next Year"; Green Light for Samsung and SK in Price Talks

Key points: Market researcher TrendForce forecast that average selling prices for HBM will rise 121% next year from this year. After Micron said it had already contracted most of its 2027 HBM volume at prices higher than this year's, the environment is seen as favorable for price negotiations by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. The industry estimates that the per-stack price of 12-layer 36GB HBM4 will more than double, to about $1,300 next year from roughly $600 this year, while Samsung Electronics' global HBM market share rose 12 percentage points to 33% in the second quarter from 21% in the first quarter of this year. As chipmakers' profitability continues to improve, expectations are growing inside and outside the industry for expanded hiring in memory design, process and verification roles.

5. Same Pay After Retirement Age: Japan Keeps Older Workers On

Key points: Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare put revised "equal pay for equal work" guidelines into effect on Oct. 1, barring differences in treatment between rehired workers past retirement age and regular employees without clear justification. Japan had 9.43 million workers aged 65 and over last year, a record high, and 76.1% of them were non-regular workers, making them the direct targets of the new rules. Amid a severe labor shortage, home appliance retailer Nojima offered a starting monthly salary of 477,000 yen (about 4.2 million won) to applicants with part-time work experience, and YKK, the world's largest zipper maker, abolished its retirement age entirely in 2021. Japan's employment experiments, in a country that entered a super-aged society ahead of South Korea, are drawing attention as a leading case for gauging where the Korean labor market is headed.

6. "A Decade on 3D Imaging Alone, and Nvidia and Samsung Came Calling"

Key points: Ndot Light, a 3D image generation startup, was selected as a strategic partner by Nvidia and Samsung SDS after a decade of technology development. Its core product, Trinix, generates 3D CAD files from natural-language commands and is drawing attention in robot reinforcement learning simulation for its speed of producing 2,000 3D files of industrial pellets in an hour. Inquiries from robotics companies surged about tenfold in the first half of this year from the preceding period, a sign of the expanding physical AI market, and 20 companies in fields including home appliances, shipbuilding and fashion accessories now use Trinix. As a case of a company digging into a single technology for 10 years and turning it into global partnerships, it offers a growth path worth noting for job seekers weighing long-term expertise and entrepreneurship.