Around 30 percent of workplace harassment cases are not reported or responded to, a survey by the Ministry of Employment and Labor showed Wednesday.
In a 2024 ministry survey revealed by Rep. Kim Ui-sang of the main opposition People Power Party, 28.8 percent of the 1,000 respondents said they had been either a victim of or witness to workplace harassment in the past year. But 31.3 percent of the respondents said they did not respond in any way.
Some 45.5 percent of respondents said they consulted a colleague about the harassment.
When asked why they chose not to do anything about the harassment, most respondents cited “risk of being subject to disadvantage or criticism at work” and “concern that the perpetrator would not be properly punished.”
Around 17 percent of respondents said they quit work as a result of harassment.
The survey revealed that workers in their 30s were most prone to workplace harassment for both genders: 16.9 percent of men in their 30s said they experienced harassment, with the figure for women reaching 24.1 percent.
Over half (54.5 percent) of the harassment cases were imposed by the respondents’ superiors.
Though a clause banning workplace harassment has been enacted in the Labor Standards Act since 2019, it has been criticized as too ambiguous for actual application. Article 76-2 defines workplace harassment as taking advantage of one’s superior status to “cause physical or mental suffering to other employees or deteriorate the work environment beyond the appropriate scope of work,” which can be open to interpretation.
Though the survey shows the majority of the harassment is committed by one’s superior, a substantial number of cases involve a colleague of equal status or even a subordinate.
Seo Yu-jeong, a researcher at the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education and Training, wrote in her recent column about the law’s mention of “superior status,” saying the focus should solely be on the act of harassment itself, regardless of the relative status between the victim and the perpetrator.
The recent survey showed that 37.8 percent of the respondents felt that there were no significant changes at the workplace since the anti-workplace harassment law was enacted.
Additionally, the survey revealed that 30 percent of respondents said they are not aware of government programs that they can reach out to if witnessing or experiencing workplace harassment.