POSCO工会预告11月2日起无限期罢工，工资谈判僵局（AI简报重述，无新增事实）

▲ AI PRISM* Personalized Economic Briefing
* Editor's note: AI PRISM (Personalized Report & Insight Summarizing Media) is an artificial intelligence-based personalized news recommendation and summary service developed with support from the Korea Press Foundation. It selects and delivers six news items tailored to each reader type.
[Key Issue Briefing]
■ POSCO faces first open-ended strike since its founding: POSCO's labor union has given notice of an open-ended strike starting Nov. 2, demanding a 7.1% increase in base pay and incentive pay worth 600% of monthly wages, while management has offered a 2.5% base pay increase and a one-time payment of 5 million won, leaving talks deadlocked. The outcome of a ratification vote by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' union on a second tentative agreement — a 120,000 won increase in base pay and a one-time payment of 11.5 million won — is drawing attention as a watershed for the direction of this autumn's labor offensive across the steel and shipbuilding industries.
■ Youth job quality reverses generational gap in a decade: The job quality index for young people fell 6.4 points, from an average of 101.1 in 2014-2019 to an average of 94.7 from 2023 through September 2026, while the index for those aged 30 to 59 rose from 100.2 to 104.0, widening the gap between generations. The Bank of Korea said the spread of AI has strengthened corporate preference for experienced hires, narrowing the path for new graduates to enter the primary labor market.
■ Douzone Bizon hack raises fears of mass exposure of smaller firms' business data: After a series of hacking incidents at Douzone Bizon, which manages accounting, tax, payroll and tax-payment data for about 110,000 smaller companies, the Ministry of Science and ICT has formed a joint public-private investigation team and launched a probe. Experts warned that leaks of payroll and tax-payment data could be more damaging than leaks of resident registration numbers, raising the risk of secondary harm such as financial fraud.
[News of Interest to New Employees]
1. First Open-Ended Strike Since Founding Looms, POSCO on High Alert
Key points: POSCO's labor union has given notice of an open-ended strike starting Nov. 2, demanding a 7.1% increase in base pay and incentive pay worth 600% of monthly wages, while management has offered a 2.5% base pay increase and a one-time payment of 5 million won, leaving the two sides far apart. POSCO went through its first strike in 58 years on the 9th of last month, and now faces the prospect of a walkout with no set end date, deepening concerns about production disruptions. HD Hyundai Heavy Industries' union held a ratification vote on the 27th on a second tentative agreement calling for a 120,000 won increase in base pay and a one-time payment of 11.5 million won, as the mood for an autumn labor offensive heats up across the steel and shipbuilding industries. The structure of wage talks at large manufacturers and the way pay is set could ripple through the employment climate across the sector, drawing attention from workers in manufacturing.
2. Shadow of the Chip Boom, Fewer Openings for Young Workers
Key points: The Bank of Korea released findings on the 26th showing that the job quality index for young people fell from an average of 101.1 in 2014-2019 to an average of 94.7 from 2023 through September 2026, while the index for those aged 30 to 59 rose to 104.0. The central bank said growth in IT manufacturing, including semiconductors, has failed to translate into permanent jobs, and that AI has taken over some of the basic research and analysis work once handled by new hires, strengthening corporate preference for experienced candidates. The number of young people entering their first job per 1,000 who had left school fell from 48 to 45, and the share moving from the secondary to the primary labor market dropped from around 8% to around 5%. The Bank of Korea warned that if the trend persists, a hysteresis effect could emerge in which employment improves only slowly even after hiring demand recovers, because workers lack job skills.
3. From Personnel to Payroll and Tax Data, Douzone Breached With Books of 110,000 Smaller Firms
Key points: Douzone Bizon, which supports accounting, tax, personnel and payroll work for smaller companies, suffered two hacking incidents this month, and the Ministry of Science and ICT judged them to be serious intrusions and formed a joint public-private investigation team. The compromised services were Smart A 10, an accounting program for smaller firms, and the APO backup service, and the scope of the damage could be wide, as more than 80% of South Korea's tax and accounting firms manage client companies using Douzone Bizon solutions. Experts warned that payroll and tax-payment data could lead to secondary damage more serious than leaks of resident registration numbers, and analysts said that because supply-chain attacks target systems managing data for many companies from a central point, a single intrusion can give simultaneous access to data from numerous client firms, widening the damage beyond that of an ordinary hack. With the possibility that payroll and income data of employees at smaller firms has been exposed, awareness is rising about secondary harm such as phishing and financial fraud.
[Reference News for New Employees]
4. "Urgently Seeking Physical AI Operations Specialists," SI Industry Short of Staff
Key points: Systems integration firms affiliated with large conglomerates, including LG CNS, Hyundai AutoEver and Lotte Innovate, have simultaneously joined the competition to hire experienced staff in physical AI and robotics, but supply is not keeping up with demand, with 58.2% of domestic companies reporting a shortage of specialists. As the robot-as-a-service market emerges as a next-generation growth driver for SI companies, demand is rapidly growing for people with a range of skills, including imitation learning, reinforcement learning and development of vision-language-action models. Industry officials say it is difficult to find not only doctoral-level talent but also master's-level candidates with experience developing robots at startups, and point to a shortage of educational institutions with hands-on robotics facilities as the underlying cause of the staffing shortage. Competition among conglomerate SI firms to hire robotics and AI specialists who combine field experience with domain knowledge is expected to intensify further.
5. Amid Lending Curbs and Rate Burden, Transactions Plunge in Seongdong, Gwangjin and Mapo
Key points: Apartment transactions in Seoul's Han River belt fell by more than half in the third quarter from a year earlier. Seongdong District posted the steepest drop at 75.6%, followed by Gwangjin (-62.1%), Mapo (-59.7%), Gangdong (-55.4%), Dongjak (-54.2%) and Yongsan (-50.0%). The three Gangnam-area districts fell 34.8% over the same period, a smaller decline than in the Han River belt. Experts said a transaction cycle is under way in which the slowdown spreads from the Gangnam area to the Han River belt and then to outlying districts such as Nowon, Dobong and Gangbuk.
6. FDEs Working the AX Front Line, Hiring Demand Jumps 14-Fold in a Year
Key points: The number of companies posting job openings for forward-deployed engineers from January through September this year rose 13.8-fold from a year earlier, and the number of positions rose 14.5-fold, Wanted Lab said on the 26th. FDEs are developers sent to client sites to build and apply AI solutions directly to a company's operations and data, a role first introduced by Palantir and since expanded rapidly by global AI companies including OpenAI and Anthropic. Wanted Lab plans to hold an FDE Recruiting Carnival on the 18th of next month at Lotte World Tower in Seoul's Jamsil area, with participants including MakinaRocks, Sionic AI and VESSL AI, and to run an FDE Academy covering the full process of applying AI technology, linking graduates to its hiring talent pool. The FDE role, which combines the ability to build AI solutions with on-site client experience, is drawing attention as the position with the fastest-expanding hiring demand in the developer job market.
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▶Read the full article: First Open-Ended Strike Since Founding Looms, POSCO on High Alert