Korea Tackles AI's Impact on Labor: New Tripartite Committee Launches as Business Leaders Voice Concerns to ILO Chief

A Busy Day for Korean Labor Politics

If you wanted a snapshot of just how much artificial intelligence is reshaping the conversation around work in South Korea, May 22nd gave you a pretty clear picture. On the same day that the country's top labor-management advisory body launched a brand new AI-focused committee, the head of Korea's largest employers' federation was sitting down with the Director-General of the International Labour Organization to talk about some of the very tensions that AI — and a landmark Samsung dispute — have already stirred up. And across the country in Daegu, city officials were busy rolling out an ambitious plan to turn their city into a global deep tech startup hub. Let's break it all down.

Korea's Labor-Management-Government Tripartite Body Gets Serious About AI

The Economic, Social and Labor Council — known in Korean as the Gyeongsa-nowi (경사노위), a government-affiliated body that facilitates dialogue between labor unions, employers, and the government — officially launched its new "AI Transition Co-prosperity Committee" on the morning of May 22nd in Seoul's Jongno district. The first full meeting of the 17-member committee was held the same day.

So here's the thing: this isn't just a talking shop. The committee is made up of the chairperson, three representatives each from labor and management, four government officials, and six public interest members, and it's set to operate for exactly one year, running through May 21st of next year. The agenda they've laid out is genuinely substantive, covering four main areas:

• The actual on-the-ground impact of AI adoption in Korean workplaces
• How workers and companies can adapt to AI-driven job changes together
• Building trust around how AI systems collect and use worker data
• Establishing support frameworks to help businesses and workers through the AI transition

The committee's chair, Hwang Deok-soon, a former head of the Korea Labor Institute, was clear about the approach he wants to take. "We won't stay stuck in abstract debates about whether AI is good or bad," he said. "We're going to start by actually looking at how AI is being introduced and used in workplaces, what changes workers and companies are experiencing, and what institutional fixes might be needed."

The Samsung Question Nobody Wants to Answer — Yet

What's really interesting is what the committee is deliberately not putting on the table right now: the redistribution of excess profits generated by AI-driven productivity gains. This has become a hot-button issue in Korea following a high-profile dispute at Samsung Electronics, where unions demanded a share of the company's massive profits — projected at around 300 trillion Korean won (roughly 220 billion USD) in operating profit this year — fueled in part by the global semiconductor boom.

When asked whether the committee would take up that kind of profit-sharing question, Chair Hwang sidestepped it carefully. "The Samsung case is a bit of a different thread from what this committee is handling," he said. "The scope of what we mean by co-prosperity is much broader than just redistributing revenues." He also pointed out that it's still far from certain that AI companies will generate the enormous profits many are predicting. "Discussing what to do when that happens feels a bit premature right now," he added.

Kim Ji-hyeong, the chair of the broader Economic, Social and Labor Council, framed the committee's mission in bigger-picture terms. "What matters is how we collectively decide and manage the changes that AI is bringing to job structures," he said. "I hope this becomes a space where labor, management, government, and experts engage in deep, substantive social dialogue — one where technological progress and workers' livelihoods can truly go hand in hand."

Korea's Top Business Lobby Takes Its Concerns Straight to the ILO

Just a few hours later and across town at a Seoul hotel, Son Kyung-shik, chairman of the Korea Employers Federation (known by its Korean acronym Gyeongtong, or KEF) — the country's most powerful business lobby — sat down with Gilbert Houngbo, Director-General of the International Labour Organization, for a discussion on Korean and global labor issues.

Houngbo was in Korea as part of a "Global AI Hub Cooperation" visit with the Korean government, and Son used the meeting to flag two major concerns that are keeping Korean business leaders up at night.

Concern One: The Revised Labor Union Act

The first issue Son raised was Korea's revised Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act — commonly called the Union Act or Nojo-beop. Recent amendments to this law have allowed unions representing subcontractors and even sub-subcontractors to demand collective bargaining directly with prime contractors. In other words, if you're a major conglomerate at the top of a supply chain, you could now find yourself at the negotiating table with unions several layers removed from your direct workforce.

"Korea's industrial structure is built on layers of contractors and subcontractors," Son explained. "With the revised law allowing unions from those downstream companies to bargain directly with the prime contractor, we're seeing a rapid surge in bargaining demands. There's growing uncertainty on the ground about who the bargaining parties even are, and it's creating widespread confusion across labor relations."

Concern Two: The Samsung Profit-Sharing Precedent

Son also raised the Samsung Electronics situation directly, framing it as a potential precedent that worries the broader business community. While a strike was ultimately averted after the union and Samsung reached an agreement earlier this year, Son pointed out that the fallout hasn't gone away. Disputes over fairness — both between Samsung and other companies in different industries, and even between different divisions within Samsung itself — are still simmering.

"The business community is concerned that this kind of movement could spread across the broader labor relations landscape," he warned. At the same time, Son struck a more optimistic tone on AI, noting that Korean companies are committed to working with the international community under an "AI for All" vision — one that he said aligns with the ILO's own recent report on using AI to create quality jobs.

Meanwhile in Daegu: Building a Deep Tech Startup City from the Ground Up

While Seoul was hosting all these high-level labor conversations, things were moving fast in Daegu, South Korea's fourth-largest city, about 300 kilometers to the southeast. Daegu has just been selected as one of four key hub cities under the central government's "Startup City Project," an initiative by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups designed to decentralize Korea's startup ecosystem — which, like most things in Korea, has historically been heavily concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area.

The other three cities in the program are Gwangju, Daejeon, and Ulsan — all cities that are home to major government-funded science and technology institutes. In Daegu's case, that's DGIST (Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology), which hosted the joint strategy conference and MOU signing ceremony on May 21st.

What's notable is that Daegu secured the largest share of the 2026 national budget allocation among the four cities — 18.7 billion Korean won (approximately 13.5 million USD). The city plans to use this funding as the anchor for a comprehensive startup support package running through 2030, covering everything from talent discovery and technology commercialization to investment attraction, global market entry, and even residential support for entrepreneurs who relocate to Daegu.

Three Strategic Focus Areas

Daegu's vision — "Daegu: An Advanced Manufacturing AI Transformation City Led by AI and Robotics Startups" — zeroes in on three sectors the city believes it can genuinely compete in globally:

• AI and Software: Anchored around the Suseong Alpha City and Dongdaegu Venture Valley districts, which are being developed as digital innovation hubs
• Robotics and Mobility: Built around the Technopolis and Seongeo Industrial Complex, focused on real-world testing and demonstration environments
• Medical and Bio-tech: Centered on Daegu's Advanced Medical Complex, with a goal of nurturing healthcare unicorn companies

A 52-organization consortium — including DGIST, Kyungpook National University, Keimyung University, and multiple regional research and innovation institutes — has been formed to drive the initiative, with 31 specific projects totaling 2.9 billion won already lined up for this year alone. Separately, 74 startups selected through a competitive application process will receive commercialization funding of up to 400 million won each in emerging industries.

Kim Jeong-gi, the acting mayor of Daegu, summed up the city's ambitions simply: "We're building on our manufacturing base and layering in AI, robotics, and bio-healthcare. This project gives us the chance to become a startup-led city at the frontier of industrial AI transformation."

The Bigger Picture

Taken together, these three stories paint a pretty coherent portrait of where South Korea stands right now. The country is moving fast on AI — in its workplaces, in its cities, and in its international partnerships. But the hard questions about who benefits from that transformation, and how the gains get shared, are only beginning to be asked out loud. The new tripartite committee has a year to find some answers. Whether it can move fast enough to keep pace with the technology itself is another question entirely.

This article is based on reports from Labortoday, Labortoday, Polinews.