• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.19-30
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• 2024

Purpose: This research article investigates the intricate relationship between economic growth and employment in the Korean agri-food industry. Research design, data and methodology: Drawing on Okun's law, which proposes a negative correlation between economic growth and unemployment, the study explores the applicability of this law to different sectors. By focusing on the agri-food industry, the study examines the impact of economic growth on both full-time and temporary employment. Results: The findings highlight the industry's role as a buffer, absorbing workers from other sectors, particularly manufacturing. Moreover, the study reveals that temporary employment is more sensitive to economic growth fluctuations compared to full-time employment. Conclusions: The research emphasizes the importance of implementing employment programs that support transitioning workers in the agri-food industry, facilitating knowledge and skill transfer to ensure sustained employment. Furthermore, it recommends government and company support for temporary employment during buffering periods to ensure safe job transitions. This study provides valuable evidence to understand the nuanced relationship between economic growth and employment in the Korean agri-food industry.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.15-25
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• 2017

We evaluated industry growth and employment effects of every possible pairs of 22 manufacturing sectors and 16 regions (i.e, 352 region-sectors). We used annual data of manufacturing sectors from 2008 to 2014 for the evaluation. The evaluation comprises of two steps; We first find several region-sectors that outperform others with respect to the effects of industry growth and employment, which are measured by location quotient analysis, shift share method, employment to GDP ratio and employment elasticity. In addition, cross-efficiency analysis follows to classify region-sector pairs into two sub-categories : efficient region-sectors that deserve to hold the current level of investments and inefficient region-sectors where we should consider efficiency improvements. To examine the efficiency, R&D investment, employment size, and capital investment were used as input factors and production volume, added value, changes in employment size, changes in annual salary per capita were used as output factors. For region-sector pairs that have outstanding growth and employment effects but are inefficient, we employed a CCR DEA model and analyzed how much to adjust the values of input and output factors to improve the efficiency scores. The analysis results showed that inefficiency is mainly due to several factors such as R&D investment, changes in employment size and changes in annual salary per capita.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.1-32
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• 2020

This paper studies urban growth in Korean cities. First, I document that population growth patterns change over time and that the current population distribution supports random urban growth. I confirm two empirical laws-Zipf's law and Gibrat's law-both of which hold in the period of 1995-2015, but do not hold in the earlier period of 1975-1995. Second, I find a systematic employment growth pattern of Korean cities in spite of the random population growth. I examine market access effects on employment growth. Market access, a geographical advantage, has a significant influence on urban employment growth. The market access effect is higher in the Seoul metropolitan area than in the rest of the country. This effect is stronger on employment growth in the manufacturing industry compared to employment growth in the service industry. These results are robust with various checks (e.g., different definitions of urban areas). The results here suggest that policymakers should consider geographical characteristics when they make policy decisions with respect to regional development.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.39 no.4
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• pp.53-71
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• 2023

This study aims to identify the contribution of factors to employment growth over the past 20 years (1996-2016) for seven metropolitan areas in Korea. For this purpose, we performed a multifactor partitioning (MFP) analysis based on the business survey data provided by Statistics Korea. The key findings of the analysis are as follows. First, over the long run, the region effect is dominant in metropolitan employment growth, followed by the industry mix effect. On the other hand, the dynamic MFP findings suggests that future regional employment disparities are likely to be explained by industry structure. Second, the gender mix and decent job mix effect do not significantly contribute to regional employment growth. However, the contributions of individual factors are not invalid, and it is possible to infer a pattern of declining employment for men-permanent workers and increasing employment for women-contingent workers. These results indicate the importance and necessity of employment policies that can promote structural transition in regional industries and qualitative growth accompanied by employment stability.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.55-74
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• 2015

Using the Census on Establishments collected by Statistics Korea, we analyze how the patterns of job creation and destruction differ across counties (si-gun-gu). We measure aggregate employment changes due to establishment startups, expansions, contractions, and shutdowns for each county and quantify the role of such reallocations in explaining variation in employment growth across counties. Overall we find that both rates of net entry and job creation play an important role in explaining differences in net job creation rates across regions. Moreover, counties with high employment growth rates also tend to have high exit and job destruction rates, which suggests that an active process of job reallocation is a key source of regional employment growth.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.34-41
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• 2018

This paper studied balanced regional development focused on employment in Korea, by analyzing regional disparity between regional and industrial employment. A Gini-coefficient decomposition method and Panel Granger causality test were conducted, using raw data of the Census on Establishments reported by the Statistics Korea. The regional and industrial disparity of employment, based on the Gini-coefficient decomposition method, have increased by year. However, the growth rates of disparity are on the decrease. Most of employment disparity occurred from regional disparity between SMA (Seoul Metropolitan Area) and Non-SMA. Industrial disparity are occurred mainly by the service industry. The amount of contribution to the whole disparity of inter/intra regional employment was differed by each industrial sector. Also the causal relationship between employment growth of manufacture and that of service industry was analyzed by Panel Granger causality test. In national level, the employment growth in manufacture industry has conduced that in service industry. On the other hand, in the Non-SMA, only the employment growth in manufacture industry has augmented that in service industry. In conclusion, to reduce employment disparity, the strategy for balanced regional development should be emphasized. Different strategies are needed across regions and industries. Basically creating new job in the Non-SMA is inevitable. In view of stable employment, manufacture industry is more desirable rather than service industry.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.23-43
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• 1999

The strategy of regional industrial specialization is empirically evaluated by examining the relationship between regional industrial structures and economic performances. The regional industrial structure is measured by three industrial diversity indices such as ogive approach, entropy maximizing approach, and economic growth and employment instability in 12 regions is analyzed. According to the time series analysis, we found that the region with more diversified industrial structure experiences more stable in employment. Otherwise, the growth rate of the region with more simplified industrial structure is higher. Therefore, the strategy of industrial specialization is implemented in order to pursuit a rapid economic growth in the short run.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.117-130
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to provide benefits and ethically-rooted managerial implications based on theoretical underpinnings through an empirical study using correlation between wages, bank credit, government expenditure on economic growth, and employment via a case study in Indonesia. Besides that, managerial implications strive to provide benefits to the government regarding the importance of establishing effective and pro-development regulations to realize economic growth and employment through the efficient role of wages, bank credit, and government spending. This study uses secondary macroeconomic data from the period 2010-2019 with analysis using the correlation test with the Pearson correlation method. Out of eight hypotheses tested, two hypotheses do not have a significant correlation. The details of the statistical results obtained the following correlations: the correlation between bank credit and wages has a significant, but indirect (negative) correlation. However, the correlation between bank credit and economic growth has a direct and significant (positive) correlation. Government expenditure correlates positively with wages, but correlates negatively with bank credit. Wages are positively correlated with economic growth, but have no significant effect on employment. Finally, economic growth has a positive correlation with government expenditure, but does not have a significant correlation with employment.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.141-167
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• 2017

This study carries out an empirical analysis of how workplace innovation affects employment growth. The theoretical model and hypotheses of this study are drawn from the previous research on the employment effects of innovation. I use the data on Workplace Innovation Indicators(2013-14) collected by Labor Foundation. As the regression models for this study, I adopt OLS models whose dependent variable is employment growth rate, and whose main independent variables are the adoption and the intensity(standardized values) of three innovative work practices such as TQM, employee suggestion plans and multi-skill training programs. The results of this study indicate that the adoption of workplace innovation does not have significant effects on employment growth, but that the intensity of workplace innovation has weakly positive effects on employment growth. Besides, the results of this demonstrate show that government-subsided organizational innovation consulting and training hours per capita have positive employment effects, but that wage level and prior employment size have negative ones. Finally the empirical results are outlined, and their limitations and the future direction of research on this topic are discussed.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.75-83
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• 2015

This article investigates the impact of SMEs' R&D expenditure, government R&D funding, the number of funded by Government R&D programs on the employment growth rate. This study also explores whether government R&D funding and the number of funded by Government R&D programs have interaction effects between SMEs' R&D expenditures and the employment growth rate. The results show that SMEs' R&D expenditure and government R&D funding have a positive effect on the employment growth rate. The rest of variables have no significant direct effects on the employment growth rate. The government R&D funding has a interaction effect between SMEs' R&D expenditures and the employment growth rate. Especially, the firm group of high-level innovation capabilities has a positive effect on the employment growth rate. The results explain that the government R&D funding influences SMEs' employment positively and the impact of the government R&D funding on employment is more effective in the firm group of high-level innovation capabilities. Therefore, Government provides differentiation strategy of R&D funding by innovation capabilities of SMEs and can maximize the employment.