Employment, labor regulations most burdensome for small businesses

More than four out of ten small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have experienced difficulties due to regulations and cited employment and labor regulations as the most burdensome.

On Sunday, the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency, a quasi-government body set up to provide financial and policy assistance to SMEs, released a report, titled "Policy Support Plan for Regulatory Innovation for SMEs."

Based on a survey of 352 SMEs held in August and September, the report unveiled that 44.6% of the surveyed felt difficulties with regulations.

Regarding the regulations that place the greatest burden on them, 38.2% of the respondents said regulations in the employment and labor sectors were the most, followed by financing (15.6%), technology development and commercialization (11.6%), the environment (7.4%), and taxation (6.1%).

Measures necessary for regulatory innovation include alleviation of cost and administrative burdens (31.4%), prevention of excessive new regulations (27.7%), and improvement of lump-sum regulations and regulations in new industries.

In addition, more than half (55.1%) said that they had difficulties entering new businesses due to regulations.

Major factors include positive regulations (31.0%) that prohibit everything except those specified in laws and policies, duplicate administrative burden (25.0%), and inability to develop and market new products due to a lack of application standards (23.0%).

Write to Dae-Kyu Ahn at powerzanic@hankyung.com