South Korea is moving to strengthen immunity for police officers and improve training, following controversy sparked by a recent stabbing incident. In the incident, a pair of police officers -- a man and a woman -- were dispatched to an apartment complex in Incheon on Nov. 15 over a noise complaint. The man living on the fourth floor, who was the subject of the complaint, came down with a knife ...

Songwol, a South Korean towel maker, has received a presidential award for its decades-long effort to improve labor-management relations, the Korea Labor and Employment Service, Wednesday. Founded in 1949, Songwol is a local towel manufacturer with around 35 percent of the market share. Now a leading towel maker, Songwol was on the verge of bankruptcy during the Asian financial crisis of 1997,...

ST Pharm, a South Korean biopharmaceutical company, has received a presidential award for its efforts to improve labor-management relations, the Korea Labor and Employment Service said Wednesday. Founded in 2008, ST Pharm has been involved in the commissioned production of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Backed by its contract manufacturing capabilities, the company stepped up as one of major...

“I felt I could do something with that unused leather,” Kim said. Years of research and development by the company led to the world’s first yarn product made up of leather scraps. Kim also developed a manufacturing process that doesn’t use water and chemicals. Kim said she wanted to minimize the resources that go into the recycling process since large amounts of water and other resources are al...

The rate of COVID-19 infection among those aged 18 and under has surpassed that of adults, according to government data. Amid the increasing number of new coronavirus infections among young people, Education Minister Yoo Eun-hae asked parents to get their children vaccinated. The minister’s request came as concerns over children’s infections have mounted, particularly after the government allow...

The South Korean government has decided to postpone announcing an emergency COVID-19 response plan until Monday, Health Minister Kwon Deok-cheol said Friday. The minister’s announcement followed a government meeting on Thursday, where health authorities discussed the possibility of reintroducing toughened measures to contain the resurgence of the coronavirus. They, however, failed to come to a c...

Ansan Urban Corp., a corporation run by the local government of Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, is resolving labor-management conflicts and improving workplace culture with the aid of the Korea Labor and Employment Service. The service, a state-run organization under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, offers a wide range of services to help local firms solve a range of labor-involved issues. Ansan ...

In South Korea, many firms located outside of Greater Seoul suffer difficulties in recruiting young employees, as they continue to move to the capital and nearby areas to find jobs. Ercohs, a baby food company based in Daejeon, faced the same problem in the past. The company had to deal with problems caused by its aging workforce as well as a high turnover rate for young workers. Due to the hi...

SK Bioscience’s contract manufacturing deal to produce AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine will expire by the end of this year, according to the company Thursday. The deal greatly helped South Korea secure shots in its early vaccination stage, but as the government has decided to phase out the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, there is no need for the firm to continue producing it, the firm said. As f...

Streaming giant Netflix announced on Thursday a subscription fee increase of up to 17 percent, its first hike since launching the service in South Korea in 2016. The streaming platform’s standard plan will cost 13,500 won ($11.45) a month, up 12.5 percent from the previous 12,000 won, and the premium plan will go up 17.24 percent to 17,000 won from 14,500 won. The basic plan will remain unchange...

South Korea will spend 20 billion won ($16.9 million) next year to nurture local industries for materials, parts and equipment for chips, future cars, bio products and nanotechnologies, officials said Wednesday. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki, unveiling a road map to identify and strengthen the weakest link in the country’s industrial value chain, said if all goes as planned, the country will see ...

South Korean pharmaceutical firm Yuhan said Wednesday that the company’s nonalcoholic steatohepatitis treatment candidate YH25724 will go through a phase 1 clinical trial in Europe. The test will involve some 80 healthy overweight adults to test safety, tolerability and pharmacodynamics of the NASH drug candidate. Yuhan expects that the study to be completed by June next year. With the commenc...

The South Korean government announced Tuesday it will develop hydrogen and ammonia as feedstock for thermal power generation in order to gradually phase out the use of fossil fuels. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the government has launched a public-private council to lead the research, with an aim of introducing hydrogen and ammonia in the fuel mix as early as 2030. T...

The South Korean government announced Tuesday it will develop hydrogen and ammonia as feedstock for thermal power generation in order to gradually phase out the use of fossil fuels. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, the government has launched a public-private council to lead the research, with an aim of introducing hydrogen and ammonia in the fuel mix as early as 2030. T...

South Korean pharmaceutical giant Celltrion’s Truxima, the first biosimilar of Roche’s blockbuster cancer drug Rituxan (rituximab), has a market share close to 50 percent in major European countries, the company said Monday. According to Celltrion Healthcare, which is in charge of Celltrion’s overseas business, the combined market share of Truxima in the UK, France, Italy, Germany and Spain reac...