• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.313-336
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• 2020

In this paper, I review evidence on changing global specialization in labor-intensive exporting. Production of apparel, footwear, furniture, and related products are how many low-income countries first enter export manufacturing. Just as China's rise as a powerhouse in these goods supplanted a role previously occupied by the East Asian Tigers, the world may again be on the cusp of significant change in where labor-intensive goods are produced. China's prowess in these sectors peaked in the early 2010s; its share in their global exports, while still substantial, is now in decline. Mechanisms through which the global economy may adjust to China's graduation into more technologically sophisticated activities include expanded labor-intensive export production in other emerging economies and labor-saving technological change in products currently heavily reliant on less-educated labor. Available evidence suggests that the first mechanism is operating slowly and the second hardly at all. As a third mechanism, China may in part replace itself by moving labor-heavy factories out of densely populated and expensive coastal cities and into the country's interior. Such a transition, though still in its infancy, would mirror the decentralization of manufacturing production in the U.S. and Europe, which occurred after World War II.

• Korea Trade Review
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-15
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• 2019

This study aims to analyze the effects of trade on human capital accumulation and economic growth in Korean manufacturing industry. The results of empirical analysis by dynamic panel model are as follows. The increase in exports of skilled labor intensive industries has a positive effect on human capital and economic growth, and the impact of import on human capital accumulation and economic growth has alst a positive impact. The exports of unskilled intensive labor industries have a negative impact on human capital accumulation and economic growth. Imports of unskilled labor intensive industries have negative on human capital accumulation and economic growth. It is difficult to derive statistically significant results for the effects of trade on human capital accumulation and economic growth before and after 2008. However, as a result of the financial crisis in 2008, it seems that the effects have decreased since 2008.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 1997

The main purpose of this study was to examine the sectors of Korean textile complex based on various economic characteristics and performances. The sectors in the textile complex differed in many aspects. Man-made fiber industry showed capital-intensive characteristics even though most of the sectors in the textile complex were labor-intensive. Textile industry is composed of weaving and spinning, knitting, dyeing and finishing sectors and even within the textile industry, each sector had different characteristics from each others. Weaving and spinning sector seemed to require relatively high capital investment, while dyeing and finishing was very labor-intensive. Labor-intensive apparel industry has faced decrease in labor-productivity while wage has increased. Slow growth in labor productivity in Korean textile complex was shown to be a more problem than increase in wage or ratio of labor cost to value added. Apparel companies appeared to be in better financial states than the textile companies, even though the exports of apparel products have decreased in the 1990s. However, in overall the financial states of the Korean textile complex were not as strong as those of the other manufacturing sectors.

• Journal of Technology Innovation
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.54-79
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• 1998

Entering the 1990s, Korean economies experienced the high-cost and low-efficiency situation which evetually caused many Korean firms led to relocate their production facilities to lower labor cost countries. This paper aims to draw out the characteristics of FDI and to evaluate the impacts of FDI in manufacturing sectors. Firstly, we try to categorize the indutries into three groups, labor intensive, capital intensive, and the technology intensive industries figuring out the characteristics of FDI of Korean firms. Secondly, we compare the three categories by grouping high and low foreign investment areas using value added data. Thirdly, we analyse the impacts of foreign production relocation the number of firms, production volume and jobs creation in Korea during the period 1991-1996. This paper concludes that the FDI of Korean firms concentrates to labor intensive industry and the hollowing effect caused by FDI was observed partially in the labor intensive industry.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.113-120
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• 2021

In the past, manufacturing-oriented industries focused on improving labor productivity to achieve economic growth. Korea is changing from a labor-intensive industry to a technology-intensive industry in order to occupy a competitive edge compared to other countries. Recently, a lot of investment has been made not only in technology-intensive industries but also in information industries. Therefore, it is developing in various forms such as special technology, platform industry, and virtual reality as a technology-intensive industry and information industry field. In this social phenomenon, the necessity of starting a business using new ideas and technologies is increasing. Therefore, universities also need entrepreneurship education for their students, and it is necessary to investigate how the contents of the university's start-up education support, individual achievement needs, and the degree of acquisition of start-up knowledge affect the establishment of business strategies necessary for start-ups.

• Journal of information and communication convergence engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2020

In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, many production plants are gradually evolving into smart factories that apply information and communication technology to manufacturing, distribution, production, and quality management. The conversion from conventional factories to smart factories has resulted in the automation of production sites using the internet and the internet of things (IoT) technology. Thus, labor-intensive production can easily collect necessary information. However, implementing a smart factory required a significant amount of time, effort, and money. In particular, labor-intensive production industries are not automated, and productivity is determined by human skill. A representative industry of such industries is sewing the industry. In the sewing industry, wherein productivity is determined by the operator's skills. This study suggests that production performance, inventory management and product delivery of the sewing industries can be managed efficiently with existing production method by using smart buttons incorporating IoT functions, without using automated machinery.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.75-99
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• 2022

This paper analyzes job creation when the Korean economy transitioned to a knowledge economy from the 1990s to the 2010s. During this period, the ratio of service to manufacturing jobs increased, knowledge intensive industries grew, and job creation became geographically concentrated around Seoul. The changes slowed down in the 2010s, and overall job growth weakened. To analyze the effect of job creation driver industries during this period, the main part of which are knowledge intensive tradable service industries, on local service job creation, I use a modified version of the local labor market of Moretti (2010). I analyze the job changes during 1995-2005 and during 2006-2016 in 237 Si-Gun-Gu areas in the Census on Establishments datasets. I find that one manufacturing job creates 0.5 local service jobs and that one tradable service job creates 1.1 jobs within Gu areas of metro cities and 2.3 jobs in Si-Gun areas. The job creation relationship between the tradable and local service sectors was not altered in this period. As more jobs were created in the tradable sector driven by the transition to a knowledge economy, job creation overall remained active, with the opposite also being true.

• Korean Management Science Review
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 1995

Recently Korean textile industry has been in the phase that requires its strategy change from the less-develped country style of the labor-intensive products to the developed country style of the technology-intensive products. It needs to make more efforts to develop the value-added products to meet the customer's various needs. In addition, development of technology, equipment, and design is required to implement its corporate strategy successfully. Although Korean textile companies have currently kept skillful labor and advanced equipments, they are losing their share in the international textile markets. This is mainly because corporate management has not been involved with efficient strategy. Strategy is an adoption of a company to environment by its corporate members, thus leading to the requirement of coordination of the main functions such as manufacturing and marketing. In fact, the coordination of the two departments toward reaching the corporate goal is not easy since the two are interested in different areas, respectively. Manufacturing people show their interests in production capacity, equipment layout, process technology, quality, purchasing, and labor while marketing people, target customer, product mix, advertisement, product specification, and customer service. For this reason, conflicts sometimes happen between the two departments. There are, however, many area that need a horizontal cooperation, for instance, in layout, process technology, product mix, and potential demand. Therefore, reciprocal coordination is necessary for achieving the firm's common objectives. This study was concerned with determining the factors that enhance the competitiveness of textile firms so that they could reach the common goal of the two departments with a horizontal collaboration.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.8 no.1 s.35
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• pp.57-65
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• 2007

Rebar work is a labor intensive operation, and with labor shortage and high-wage era, the cost is rising, so re-bar manufacturing system in plant is adapted. However there remains a lot of problems. Although manufacturing system in plant, which greatly effects the building's safety, endurance, and construction time, is an important phase in construction, it holds serious problem of quality and productivity deterioration due to its characteristic of intensive-labor and maintaining of old work methods resulting in poor management, and costs increase. Therefor in this study to investigate current situation and problems of rebar work in plant and to find methods of betterment, a survey was conducted to factory engineers in 18 companies.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.143-174
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• 2024

This paper empirically examines the relationship between outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) of Korean manufacturing firms and the servicification of domestic employment using a firm-level panel data. In this study, considering the issue of low productivity in the Korean service sector, we categorize service employment into core and non-core services and investigate their relationship with OFDI using the firm-fixed effects model. The empirical results show that the share of core service employment exhibits a positive correlation with the extensive OFDI. On the other hand, the share of non-core service employment, which is expected to generate relatively low value-added, does not show a significant relationship with the extensive OFDI. When we divide the samples based on host countries and the type of subsidiaries, the impact on servicification varies depending on the technological capabilities of host countries and their participation in global value chains. Our study suggests that Korean manufacturing firm's internationalization strategies may facilitate a transition from labor-intensive employment, like the cases in advanced countries, to technology-intensive employment through OFDI and other means.