Seoul, June 5 (IANS): Around one out of every 10 South Korean workers at small and mid-size companies who changed their jobs in 2022 landed new jobs at large conglomerates, data showed Wednesday.

According to the data from Statistics Korea, the number of registered employees who were eligible for state insurance programmes came to 26.06 million in 2022, up 2.2 per cent from the previous year, Yonhap news agency reported.

Of them, 16 per cent, or 4.16 million people, changed jobs in 2022, up 5 per cent from a year earlier, while 69 per cent, or 17.99 million people, maintained their jobs.

The number of people who newly became registered workers in 2022 fell 2.9 per cent on-year to 3.91 million, the data showed.

Of those who changed their jobs, 71.3 per cent had worked for SMEs, followed by 14.9 per cent for large conglomerates and 13.9 per cent for nonprofit organisations.

Around 81.9 per cent of job-changing SME workers found new positions at other smaller-sized firms, while 12 per cent moved to large conglomerates.

As of 2022, South Korea had 23.38 million wage workers, and 34 per cent of them moved to lower-paying jobs that year, the data showed.