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Jung Woo-jin remembers Christmas Eve 2024 as the day his manager handed over the car keys. Jung, a pseudonym for a man who worked at a relocation agency for foreign executives from October 2024 to January 2026, said the manager ordered him to drive the vehicle to the supervisor's home and park it in the underground garage ahead of a night out drinking.

The personal errands escalated as time went on. Over the next year, the manager made Jung plan a private vacation for his boss in Europe, book hotels and rental cars, and research local traffic laws. Jung also had to move personal belongings and settle utility bills at the supervisor's residence.

Jung eventually quit and reported the abuse to the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Office. Authorities, however, rejected his complaint. While Jung’s company had six employees when he joined, officials determined that high turnover brought the average during his tenure to 4.66 workers. Because Korea’s workplace harassment laws apply only to businesses with at least five regular employees, the calculation left Jung in a regulatory gap without recourse.

Paradox behind 4.66 worker threshold

Jung was stunned by the decision. “If it’s a person, it’s one person. What is 0.66?” he asked, questioning a system that allows a human being to be mathematically divided. He argued that victims should not be forced to bear the burden of a shrinking workforce, putting their employer outside the law’s jurisdiction. “Workers at businesses with fewer than five people are human beings too,” he said.

The exclusion of microbusinesses from these protections stems from government concerns that small-scale employers cannot handle the financial burden or follow-up measures required by harassment claims. Labor advocates say this rationale ignores the reality that abuse is often more severe in small, isolated workplaces where employees have no internal human resources departments to assist them.

Verbal abuse, forced chores in small workplaces

The case exposes a broader legal gap that leaves workers at microbusinesses with little formal recourse. Park Eun-jin, a pseudonym for a 44-year-old woman, worked at a large bookstore in Gyeonggi Province for nearly six years without paid annual leave.

The harassment escalated when the store manager’s husband began interfering with operations. He hurled profanities at Park in front of customers and forced her to carry a walkie-talkie so he could monitor her work.

Source: Korea Times News