Korea’s prolonged construction slump freezes hiring even at major builders, firms turn overseas

Headcount at Korea’s top 10 builders falls 6.5% in a year, signaling a real hiring collapse
Property downturn, tighter PF rules, and soaring construction costs pile up, drying up demand for labor
Major builders seek growth through overseas orders as the domestic market darkens

The headcount at Korea’s top 10 construction companies has fallen sharply over the past year. As a prolonged downturn in the construction cycle deepens—driven by a weak property market, tighter project finance (PF) regulations, and rising construction costs—demand for labor across the sector is drying up. With clouds over the domestic market only getting darker, Korean builders are increasingly turning to overseas markets in search of new growth opportunities.

Jobs at top builders enter a “collapse phase”

According to Korea’s National Pension Service on January 9, the combined headcount at the top 10 construction companies stood at 52,436 as of November last year. That was down 3,655 employees, or 6.5%, from a year earlier—more than the entire workforce of SK ecoplant (3,560), one of the top 10 builders. Even among major builders that had kept annual headcount cuts around 1.6% through 2023–2024, the trend is now being described as a full-fledged employment collapse.

DL E&C recorded the steepest reduction. Its headcount fell from 5,512 to 4,734 over the year, a drop of 778 employees (-14.1%). Hyundai Engineering declined by 697 (-9.1%), to 6,946 from 7,643, while GS E&C cut 568 (-9.7%), to 5,297 from 5,865. Lotte E&C fell by 464 (-8.3%), to 5,143 from 5,607, and Daewoo E&C shed 332 (-6.1%), to 5,109 from 5,441. The only top-10 builder to increase headcount was SK ecoplant, which added 128 employees (+3.6%).

A key driver of shrinking staffing is the decline in active job sites. As the cycle cools and project momentum fades, demand has frozen for site-based contract workers—often referred to as “on-site hires”—who are estimated to account for roughly 30% of total employment at construction firms. Corporate streamlining has also played a meaningful role. Hyundai Engineering launched a voluntary retirement program for the first time in its history, while POSCO E&C cut its executive organization by 20%. In addition, four top-10 builders—DL E&C, Hyundai Engineering, POSCO E&C, and SK ecoplant—did not hire a single new graduate last year.

The Bank of Korea and the Korea Development Institute (KDI) expect construction investment to rebound by around 2% this year, but industry sentiment suggests employment will be slower to recover. Even if orders and groundbreaking resume as forecast, a meaningful lag is likely before hiring follows. Lee Eun-hyung, a research fellow at the Korea Construction Policy Institute, said institutional forecasts appear overly optimistic and disconnected from conditions on the ground, adding that even if indicators improve, they will not translate into immediate hiring—making a significant recovery in construction employment unlikely for some time.

Signs of a construction-sector recovery remain elusive

This employment crunch is not limited to the top 10 builders—it is clearly visible across the broader construction industry. According to Statistics Korea’s KOSIS, the number of people employed in construction in January–June (the first half) of last year fell to 1.939 million, down 146,000 from a year earlier. It was the first time in five years that construction employment dropped below 2 million. The decline was the largest in 26 years since the first half of 1999 (-274,000), when the fallout from the Asian financial crisis lingered, and it was even larger than the drop in the second half of 2009 (-106,000) during the global financial crisis. The Korea Employment Information Service has projected that annual construction employment last year could fall 4.8% from 2024; a simple calculation based on that estimate suggests roughly another 100,000 jobs may have disappeared in the second half.

The underlying cause darkening construction employment is widely cited as a lack of work. Statistics Korea data show that in October last year, completed construction output in the building segment—work related to constructing buildings—came to about $5.49 billion, down 25.9% from about $7.41 billion a year earlier. In November, building-segment output also fell nearly 15% year-on-year to about $6.41 billion. As the broader cycle cooled due to a weak property market and tighter PF lending rules, demand for labor shrank sharply.

Rising construction costs—driven by materials and labor—are also seen as a major headwind. According to the Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, the construction cost index stood at 132.45 in November last year, the highest level since the series began in 2000. Higher costs tend to deepen the downturn, reducing redevelopment and reconstruction projects and pushing back new starts—conditions that inevitably intensify instability in construction employment.

Overseas orders on the rise

As the domestic construction downturn drags on, Korean builders are increasingly turning overseas to generate earnings. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, overseas construction orders won by Korean companies in 2025 totaled $47.27 billion, the largest figure in 11 years since 2014 ($66.0 billion) and up 27.4% from $37.11 billion a year earlier. Annual overseas orders exceeded $40 billion for the ninth time since Korea’s first overseas construction contract in 1965. After surpassing that threshold every year from 2008 to 2015, overseas orders had remained subdued until the recent rebound.

By region, Europe accounted for $20.16 billion, or 42.6% of the total, surging 298% year on year on the back of the Dukovany nuclear power plant project in the Czech Republic ($18.72 billion). In contrast, orders in the Middle East, traditionally a stronghold for Korean builders, fell 35.8% year on year to $11.88 billion. North America and the Pacific saw orders of $6.4 billion (down 10%), while Latin America posted $1.38 billion (down 9.3%). By segment, industrial facilities led with $35.28 billion, followed by building construction ($7.22 billion), electrical works ($1.82 billion), and civil engineering ($1.46 billion).

Individual companies’ moves underscore the acceleration abroad. Daewoo E&C, for example, is stepping up overseas expansion on the back of its success in the Starlake City new-town project in Hanoi. The project dates back to before the breakup of the Daewoo Group in the late 1990s and survived both the Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global crisis, eventually breaking ground in 2012. More recently, Daewoo E&C was approved as an investor in a $390 million new-town development project in Vietnam’s Thai Binh Province and is reviewing urban and real estate development projects across Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Nigeria, and Canada.

Hyundai Engineering & Construction last year secured a foothold in advanced markets by signing contracts for front-end engineering design on the Fermi America large-scale nuclear plant in the United States and pre-work for a new nuclear project in Finland. It also won large-scale projects in renewables, including solar power in Texas and the Sinan Ui offshore wind project. Samsung C&T booked about $6.29 billion in orders last year, centered on power generation projects in the Middle East and Oceania. POSCO E&C also kicked off a recovery in overseas business by winning a $1.1 billion contract in June for the Map Ta Phut (MTP) LNG terminal project in Thailand.