"Heart Sinks": 12,000 Employees Face Job Loss in State of Shock

[Anchor]

Some 12,000 Homeplus employees are now facing the risk of losing their jobs. Concerns are mounting that the damage could snowball, affecting small business owners operating within Homeplus stores and various suppliers.

Hong Yeongjae reports.

[Reporter]

The news that the court has terminated the rehabilitation process has left Homeplus employees, who had held onto hope that their workplaces could be saved, devastated.

[Homeplus Worker: The moment I saw the word 'termination,' I didn't know what to think. I couldn't even tell if termination meant liquidation, and my heart just sank. I really thought the (rehabilitation process) would be extended.]

With the livelihoods of 12,000 Homeplus employees and about 1,000 indirectly employed workers, such as parking management staff, pushed to the brink, the Homeplus labor union has halted its hunger strike, which had been ongoing for 51 days, in a state of despair and exhaustion.

The atmosphere is also tense among the approximately 8,000 small business shops located within Homeplus.

Some tenants closed their stores early today (July 3).

[Homeplus Tenant: We received a text from the head office telling us not to operate until Sunday. (Why did they tell you not to?) Because if the payments go through Homeplus, the head office won't be able to receive the funds. They said they would switch us to their own POS (Point of Sale) terminals.]

[Homeplus Tenant: Most of these businesses invested hundreds of millions of won in facility costs to move in here. Now, we are in a situation where there is no guarantee for compensation regarding those investments.]

The situation is equally dire for companies that supply goods to Homeplus.

For 150 suppliers, the amount of unpaid dues averages 770 million won per company.

At a clothing supplier that has not received a single won in payments this year, inventory is piling up in the warehouse.

[Homeplus Clothing Supplier: The unpaid supply payments exceed 600 million won. If you include the products in the warehouse, it comes to about 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion won.]

Damages for investors in short-term electronic bonds are also reaching the 400 billion won range.

To minimize the fallout, the government has decided to provide 440 billion won in emergency liquidity support to small and medium-sized partner firms and pay up to 21 million won to those affected by unpaid wages.

Reported by Bae Moon-san | Video by Ahn Yeo-jin
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.