Workplace harassment in Korea rises, yet half of victims stay silent: survey
More than a third of South Korean office workers have experienced workplace harassment in the past year, but most choose not to report it, a new survey revealed.
The survey, conducted by Global Research on behalf of the Korean labor rights civic group Gapjil119, polled 1,000 office workers nationwide from Dec. 2 to 11, 2024. It found that 35.9 percent of respondents had faced workplace harassment in the past year, marking an increase from 30.5 percent in a similar survey conducted earlier in 2024.
Temporary and contract workers were the most vulnerable, with 41.3 percent reporting harassment compared to 32.3 percent of regular employees. Workers in non-office roles, such as those in manufacturing or service industries, were also more likely to be targeted than those in office jobs.
The most common forms of workplace mistreatment included insults and defamation (23.5 percent), unfair work instructions (19.6 percent) and physical assault or verbal abuse (19.1 percent).
Yet, rather than seeking help, 51.3 percent of victims either endured the harassment or ignored it, the survey found.
The other half took different actions: 30.1 percent protested individually or with colleagues, 23.7 percent quit their jobs, 12.8 percent reported internally to their employer or labor union, and just 5 percent filed official complaints with labor authorities.
Concerns over workplace mistreatment are rising, with 54.0 percent of respondents describing the issue as 'serious,' up from 46.6 percent earlier in 2024. Even more alarming, the percentage of workers who said they had considered self-harm or suicide due to workplace harassment surged from 15.7 percent to 22.8 percent in the same period.
Kim Yu-kyung, a labor attorney at Gapjil119, warned in the survey that the situation is dire. 'It is deeply concerning that so many victims have contemplated self-harm or even suicide, yet legal protections remain inadequate,' she said. She criticized the current system, calling workplace harassment 'a violation of human rights and a fundamental threat to safe working conditions.' Without stronger enforcement, she added, meaningful change remains elusive.
In response, the South Korean government and ruling party recently announced plans to criminalize even a single instance of workplace harassment and introduce a retrial system allowing victims to appeal employer-led investigations to the National Labor Relations Commission.
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