76.5% of Companies to Take 4-Day Chuseok Break... Bonus Payout Rate Drops to 61%

▲ A traditional market ahead of Chuseok

A survey showed that nearly 8 out of 10 companies observing holidays during this year's Chuseok holiday will take a four-day break.

The proportion of companies providing Chuseok bonuses decreased compared to last year.

The Korea Employers Federation (KEF) announced the results of its "2026 Chuseok Holiday Survey," conducted on 601 companies nationwide with five or more employees, on September 17.

According to the survey, "four days" was the most common response for the number of holiday days at 76.5%, followed by "five days or more" at 14.2%, and "three days or less" at 9.3%.

This year's Chuseok features a four-day holiday period, as public holidays from the 24th to the 26th coincide with Sunday, the 27th.

Companies taking five or more days off cited mandatory holidays under collective agreements or employment rules (41.7%) as the main reason.

Companies taking three days or less cited inevitable work such as meeting delivery deadlines (46.0%) as the primary reason.

Companies planning to pay a Chuseok bonus this year stood at 61.0%, down 2.0 percentage points from last year (63.0%).

By company size, the payout rate for companies with 300 or more employees fell 1.4 percentage points from last year to 66.7%, while companies with fewer than 300 employees dropped 2.0 percentage points to 60.3%.

As for the bonus payment method, companies paying only regular bonuses accounted for the highest share at 65.3%.

Companies paying only separate bonuses accounted for 30.8%, and those paying both types accounted for 3.9%.

Regarding the level of separate bonus payments, 85.4% responded that it was similar to last year.

Responses stating that this year's Chuseok economic conditions worsened compared to last year reached 45.2%, similar to those saying it was about the same (45.7%).

Responses indicating an improvement stood at just 9.1%.

However, the proportion of respondents saying economic conditions deteriorated decreased by 11.7 percentage points from 56.9% in last year's survey.

In particular, among companies with 300 or more employees, it dropped significantly from 49.3% to 29.4%.

For companies with fewer than 300 employees, the figure also declined from 57.9% to 47.2%, but the gap in perceived economic conditions between large and smaller companies widened.

(Photo: Yonhap News)

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