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- Original Article Occupational disease issues in high-tech industries of South Korea: analysis of governmental data on the semiconductor and display industries
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Chungsik Yoon1
, Jinjoo Chung2, Jongran Lee3, Kwonchul Ha4, Joseph DiGangi5, Jeong-Ok Kong6,* -
Annals of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 2025;37:e6.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.35371/aoem.2025.37.e6
Published online: March 24, 2025
1Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
2Korea Workers’ Compensation & Welfare Service, Seoul, Korea
3Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry (SHARPS), Seoul, Korea
4Department of Biochemistry & Health Science, Changwon National University, Changwon, Korea
5International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), Gothenburg, Sweden
6Workers Health Center in East Gyeonggi Province, Seongnam, Korea
- *Corresponding author: Jeong-Ok Kong Workers Health Center in East Gyeonggi Province, 12F, 8 Dunchon-daero 457 beon-gil, Jungwon-gu, Seongnam 13218, Korea E-mail: anotherkong@gmail.com
• Received: January 13, 2025 • Revised: March 15, 2025 • Accepted: April 24, 2025
© 2025 Korean Society of Occupational & Environmental Medicine
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Abstract
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Background This study analyzed occupational diseases compensated through the government system in the Korean electronics industry and observed changes in the rationale for compensation.
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Methods Data from the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KWCWS) from 2012 to 2023 were analyzed to examine occupational disease issues in South Korea's semiconductor and display industries.
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Results KWCWS received 174 occupational disease claims between 2012 and 2023, with 88 (50.6%) approved. The case of a 22-year-old semiconductor worker who died from leukemia has raised awareness and appears to be leading to more claims and higher approval rates. Cancer-related claims, particularly for breast and blood cancers, were the most common. Since 2018, the approval rate for occupational diseases has increased to 60%, which may have been influenced by the Supreme Court's Principle of Presumption of Occupational Diseases and the government’s reduction of the burden of proof. However, approval rates remain lower in small- and medium-sized enterprises (38.0%) compared to large corporations (55.6%), likely because of better documentation and unionization in the latter. The semiconductor industry had more claims and approvals than the LCD industry, primarily due to its longer operational history and greater chemical exposure.
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Conclusions In South Korea, the increasing approval rate of occupational diseases in the electronics industry from 2012 to 2023 appears to reflect changes in how causal relationships and occupational health policies have been implemented and this is likely due to stakeholder involvement and relevant legal decisions.
BACKGROUND
Semiconductor chips, which began commercial production in the 1960s, were predominantly manufactured in the United States until the 1980s. Since then, production has shifted largely to Asia, particularly to South Korea and Taiwan.
In a review paper on the previous epidemiological studies on semiconductor industry (Korean Standard Industrial Classification, C2611) published in 2014, reproductive risks such as spontaneous abortion, congenital malformation, and reduced fertility were clearly associated with chip production, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, leukemia, brain tumors, and breast cancer were also said to have a high possibility of excess risk.1 In a meta-analysis of six papers, the risk of spontaneous abortion was found to be significantly higher for semiconductor fabrication workers (also known as fab workers) compared to non-fab workers, and also elevated for those involved in the photolithography process, with specific chemicals believed to be related.2 In a meta-analysis on cancer, the authors found that both the standardized incidence ratios and the standardized mortality ratios for leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, brain cancer, and breast cancer were not significantly elevated among semiconductor workers.3
All three review papers above mentioned issues with the control group and the healthy worker effect, which may have underestimated the results, and highlighted the difficulty of linking health outcomes with workplace exposure. In the case of rare diseases (e.g., amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, brain tumors, and cancers diagnosed at a relatively young age), it is not easy to derive statistically significant conclusions from epidemiological studies due to the small number of cases. The characteristics of electronics industry including semiconductors such as strong policy to protect trade secrets, limited access to information, and rapid changes in production processes, make it even more difficult to conduct epidemiological studies and to identify causal factors of such diseases.4,5 In short, the characteristics of both diseases and industry could have been serious obstacles for prevention as well as compensation.
In this context, workers’ compensation data might be helpful to identify risk factors and to make policies for protecting workers’ health. In South Korea, there was a study in 2019 analyzing 55 workers’ compensation cases in the semiconductor industry approved by the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service (KWCWS), an agency under the Ministry of Employment and Labor. It found that cancer and rare diseases were mainly associated with workers employed before 2005 and with manufacturing 8-inch or smaller-sized wafers or packaging the chips. The most frequent diseases observed were lymphohematopoietic disorders such as leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and aplastic anemia. Breast cancer was the second most frequently observed disease.6 That study analyzed the compensated cases only. However, as the policies and procedures of workers’ compensation have been changed according to shifts in societal values, norms, and historical events, the decisions on compensation have been changed. Therefore, it is meaningful to examine the approval rates and recent data for all diseases submitted for compensation, and to include both the semiconductor and LCD industries (Korean Standard Industrial Classification, C2621), which share similar processes. It is necessary to examine trends in compensation for occupational diseases in relation to changes in the governmental compensation system. Research on the framework for these changes through occupational disease compensation is very limited.
The purposes of this study were to analyze occupational diseases compensated through the government compensation system in the Korean electronics industry over a period of 10 years and to observe changes in the rationale for compensation.
METHODS
The data was acquired from the KWCWS covering the years 2012 to 2023.
KWCWS, under the Ministry of Employment and Labor of South Korea, is a government agency that reviews and compensates workers for occupational injuries. The occupational injury handling procedures of KWCWS are described in detail in another paper.6
In the case of occupational diseases, the adjudication procedure is complicated and time-consuming due to the need to investigate the causal relationship. When an occupational disease claim is received, a basic investigation including the company name, occupational history, job title or task, disease name, and medical history of the worker is conducted to determine the need for a specialized investigation. If a specialized investigation is necessary, KWCWS sends the case to specific organizations. The specialized investigations usually consist of a review of existing literature on the applicant’s disease and a survey of the applicant’s work environment to determine whether there is a scientific basis for the relationship between the disease and work.
Afterwards, the Occupational Disease Determination Committee consisting of clinicians, occupational physicians, occupational hygienist and legal experts reviews all attached data related to the deliberation report and adjudicate the case. A few diseases which were compensated before (e.g., miner’s pneumoconiosis, asbestos-induced mesothelioma, etc.) can be quickly approved without additional investigation. When the claim is not accepted, the claimant may request a re-examination by KWCWS or may file a lawsuit in an administrative court.
As KWCWS is a government institution, data for this study was provided through official channels on the number of deliberations each year, the approval status of occupational diseases, the types of diseases, and the type and size of the company to which the worker belonged. Each individual's identification information was removed.
In this study, using KWCWS data, we examined trends in the number of occupational disease claims, approvals, and approval rates filed from 2012 to 2023. We divided the data into large corporations and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and also analyzed them by disease type. Additionally, electronic companies were broadly divided into the semiconductor industry and the display industry, and the number of claims, approvals, and approval rates were examined. The data shows approvals by KWCWS only, without reflecting the results of administrative litigation in court.
This study was approved by the Changwon National University Institutional Bioethics Committee (No. 7001066-202308-HR-051). The study used de-identified secondary data provided by the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service (KWCWS), and informed consent was waived by the Institutional Review Board.
RESULTS
Table 1 summarizes the number of applications, the number of approvals, and the approval rate of workers compensation claims to KWCWS for occupational diseases in semiconductor and LCD companies in South Korea from 2012 to 2023 according to the size of companies. The number of occupational disease claims to KWCWS was 174, of which 88 were approved for compensation as occupational diseases, with the approval rate of 50.6%. In large corporations, a total of 124 claims were filed, of which 69 were approved (55.6%). The approval rate varied significantly by year. For SMEs, 50 claims were submitted, with only 19 receiving approval (38.0%). Approval rates for SMEs peaked at 57.1% in both 2019 and 2020, although for several years showed no approved claims, particularly in the earlier years. Across all companies, approval rates were highest in 2019, reaching 80.6%.
Fig. 1 shows the total number of workers compensation claims on occupational disease, number of approvals, and approval rate during the study period. In 2012 and 2013, the number of claims was small, implying that the issue of occupational diseases in electronics companies had not yet become a significant social problem. In 2014 and 2015, the number of claims increased compared to the previous year, but the approval rate was 0, which is unusual in the observation period in this study. Although there have been variations since 2016, the number of claims has increased from the mid-2010s to 2021, and the approval rate has also increased significantly. In 2022 and 2023, the number of claims and approval rates appear to be lower than in previous years, but a trend is difficult to determine in a 2-year period.
The approval rate of workers compensation for occupational diseases by KWCWS in all industries from 2019 to 2023 averaged 63% ± 2%, ranging from 60% in 2023 to 65% in 2019.7 The approval rate in electronics companies in 2019 (80.6%) was higher than that of the entire industry (64.6%). However, it was lower, ranging from 44% to 55%, in other years, as shown in Table 1. Notably, while the approval rate in the entire industries shows little change, remaining around 63%, the rate in electronics companies was highest in 2019 and has decreased in recent years, making it lower than the overall industry rate.
Table 2 summarizes the number of claims, approvals, and approval rates by disease according to company size during the study period. Among 174 total claims, 164 (94.2%) were for occupational cancers and 86 (52.4%) of these claims were approved. In contrast, there were only 10 claims (5.7%) for non-cancer diseases and two (20.0%) of these were approved. In other words, workers’ compensation claims for occupational diseases in electronics companies were mainly for cancer.
The most claimed cancers were lymphohematopoietic cancers (63 out of 174 cases, 36.2%) such as leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, followed by breast cancer (38 cases, 21.8%), lung cancer (26 cases, 14.9%), other cancers (21 cases, 12.1%), and brain cancer (16 cases, 9.2%). In Table 1, it was mentioned that the approval rate for occupational diseases was high in large companies, and as shown in Table 2, the approval rate in large companies (55.6%) was higher than that in SMEs (38.0%) for all types of cancers and non-cancer diseases.
Table 2 shows that cancer was the most common disease in workers’ compensation claims and approvals for occupational diseases. As shown in Table 2, out of a total of 174 occupational disease claims, 164 (94.3%) were for occupational cancers and out of 88 occupational disease approvals, 86 (97.7%) were for occupational cancers. However, because this data does not contain total number of workers in electronics industry during the relevant period, we cannot determine the incidence or workers’ compensation approval rates for occupational cancer based on the total working population in the electronics industry. However, the number of occupational cancers in the entire industry recognized by KWCWS for workers’ compensation is 347 ± 108 over the past 6 years, and the number has increased every year since 2018 (220 cases in 2018, 286 cases in 2019, 335 cases in 2020, 311 cases in 2021, 399 cases in 2022, and 532 cases in 2023).7
As shown in Table 2 and Fig. 2, the approval rate was highest for brain cancer (81.3%). It is a unique feature that only workers from large corporations filed compensation claims for brain cancer. The approval rates for lymphohematopoietic cancers, lung cancer, and breast cancer are similarly about 50% (47.4%–54.0%), higher than the approval rate for other cancers (33.3%). For non-cancer diseases, the number of claims was the smallest (10 cases), and the approval rate was also the lowest at 20.0% (2 cases approved).
In Table 2 above, considering only cancers and excluding non-cancer diseases, the average approval rate of cancer as an occupational disease was 52.4% (86 out of 164 cases). Meanwhile, across all industries, the approval rates of workers’ compensation for cancer in 2022 and 2023 were 62.8% (339 out of 635 cases recognized) and 55.6% (532 out of 957 cases recognized), respectively.7
Fig. 3 compares the number of occupational disease claims, number of approvals, and approval rates by company size by dividing companies into semiconductor and LCD manufacturers. The data indicate that large corporations have higher approval rates and more claims than SMEs, particularly in the semiconductor industry. The approval rates decline when moving from large corporations to SMEs, with the lowest rate observed in SMEs within the LCD industry, where no claims were approved. This suggests a disparity in occupational disease claim approvals based on company size and industry type.
In both large and small businesses, the number of workers’ compensation claims of occupational diseases, approvals, and approval rates were higher in the semiconductor industry than in the LCD industry. In large semiconductor companies, 53 out of a total of 91 workers’ compensation claims were approved, for an approval rate of 58.2%. In contrast, at large LCD companies, 16 out of 33 claims were approved (48.5%).
DISCUSSION
The issue of occupational diseases in electronics companies in South Korea, especially semiconductors, began to be raised in the late 2000s. In particular, the most controversial case involved a 22-year-old female semiconductor cleanroom operator who died of leukemia. Her father filed a claim for workers compensation to KWCWS in 2007 and was rejected. But he appealed to the administrative court and finally got approval for compensation in 2014 (Table 1 does not include approvals by the court but only shows approvals by the KWCWS). Increase in number of workers compensation claims for occupational disease from electronics companies in 2014 and after could be due to raised awareness among workers by this court decision. It is believed that the increase in the approval rate to over 60% since 2017 is largely due to the Supreme Court's precedents and the principles applied therein. The Supreme Court adopted a more flexible approach to causality in occupational disease cases, focusing on legal and normative grounds rather than strict medical evidence.8 This shift addressed issues like information asymmetry between workers and companies, incomplete medical knowledge in the semiconductor industry, and companies withholding evidence.9,10 The court clarified that compensation insurance is for treatment and support, not employer accountability. Since 2018, KWCWS has not pursued further lawsuits in cases workers have won. The court established that a strict causal link is unnecessary, allowing compensation based on workplace hazards and exposure, leading to increased compensation claim.8 These major events are summarized in Table 3.
It is difficult to accurately explain the lower number of workers compensation claims for occupational disease and approvals in small- and medium-sized companies compared to large companies. The number of claims is not simply determined by the size of working population or the actual incidence of disease and our data was not appropriate to test those aspects. Research suggests that the reason for the less frequent claims and low approval rate of occupational diseases in SMEs is their relatively nonunionized workforce compared to large enterprises.11 However, there is a critical limitation in applying this explanation to electronics industry in South Korea, since Samsung, the company with the highest number of workers’ compensation claims for occupational cancer in Korea electronic industry, has very strict non-union management strategy and the independent trade union in Samsung Electronics emerged only recently. Therefore, the high number of claims and approvals is better explained to be due to the social awareness raised by the occupational disease of the 22-year-old female worker mentioned above and the efforts of Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry (SHARPS).10 In other words, in South Korea, the issue of occupational diseases in electronics companies became prominent in large corporations and became a social issue. Most SMEs are subcontractors of large corporations, and the issues may not have been well-recognized due to workers’ unstable employment status and frequent movements. Additionally, one of the reasons for the low approval rate in SMEs is that although the government or research institutes had conducted a certain amount of work environment surveys for large companies up to that time, there was no work environment survey data for SMEs. Thus, no matter how much the sick worker actually was exposed to the causal factors in the workplace, there was little data to support claims for workers compensation of occupational diseases. This might explain why the workers compensation on occupational disease approval rate in SMEs (38.0%) during the study period was significantly lower than that in large enterprises (55.6%).
The division based on 2018 stems from two significant Supreme Court rulings in 2017, which may have impacted the approval of occupational diseases in workers’ compensation claims. These cases involved female Samsung Semiconductor workers diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and a brain tumor, respectively.8 The Supreme Court approved their claims by adopting a legal and normative basis for judging the causal relationship between work environment and disease, rather than a strict medical perspective. Factors like information asymmetry, incomplete medical science, and lack of evidence likely contributed to this shift.9 Since 2018, KWCWS has not pursued further lawsuits in cases where workers won.
As a result of these influences, in 2018, the Ministry of Employment and Labor simplified the process for determining work-relatedness for eight types of occupational cancers (leukemia, multiple sclerosis, aplastic anemia, ovarian cancer, brain tumors, malignant lymphoma, breast cancer, and lung cancer) that occurred among workers engaged in the same or similar processes as cases previously recognized by the KWCWS and court rulings. This improvement aimed to reduce the excessive burden of proof on workers and facilitate a smoother process for recognizing industrial accidents.12 This policy has influenced procedures for quickly determining occupational diseases in the electronics industry, allowing for approval if certain conditions are met (e.g., employment duration of at least one year and a disease latency period within ten years after retirement). As a result, the number of occupational disease claims and the approval rate seem to have both increased.
It is important to note that the number of approved workers’ compensation cases for occupational cancers as shown in Table 2 is much lower than expected. According to a study estimating the incidence and mortality of occupational cancers in South Korea,13 the annual incidence of occupational cancer was estimated to be 4,279 to 10,764 workers, and annual deaths due to occupational cancer were estimated to be 2,929 to 7,030 workers. The study used population attributable fraction from studies previously conducted in South Korea,14 the UK,15 France,16 and China.17 Comparing the results of that study with the number of approved workers’ compensation cases for occupational cancer in South Korea by KWCWS mentioned above, it is clear that the approval of occupational cancer in workers’ compensation cases is very low compared to the estimated incidence and deaths of occupational cancer. In other words, occupational cancer is still not well detected or recognized in South Korea, which not only increases the suffering of the patients but also disrupts the implementation of prevention policies.
As explained in the interpretation of Table 1, the reason why the number of claims and approval rates are lower in SMEs compared to large businesses might be partly due to the lack of information on exposures in SMEs and lack of awareness among their workers who move frequently among different subcontractors of large companies. In particular, there was only one case of workers’ compensation claim for occupational diseases in SMEs of LCD manufacturing and it was not approved. The workers’ compensation approval rate by company size in 2023 for all industries is 65% for companies with 300 or more employees, and 57% for SMEs with fewer than 300 employees.7 However, as depicted in Table 1 and Fig. 3, the approval rate of occupational diseases in electronics companies is lower than in all industries, even among large-scale companies. Moreover, the approval rate of occupational diseases claims in SMEs in electronics industry is significantly lower than one in SMEs in all the other sectors.
There may be several reasons why LCD companies have fewer workers’ compensation claims for occupational diseases compared to semiconductor companies, but the biggest reason is probably the difference in the development stage of the two types of manufacturing companies in South Korea. In other words, semiconductor manufacturing started in the early 1970s, grew rapidly since the 1980s, and has played a pivotal role in the global market since the 1990s. The size of semiconductor wafers manufactured in South Korea was 4 inches in 1970s, but has gradually increased to the current size of 12 inches. In the past, production depended on manual work more than automatization, and there were few government regulations.6 LCD manufacturing started in the late 1980s and has grown rapidly since the late 1990s. One of the biggest LCD manufacturers in Korea, Samsung, used to have LCD manufacturing as a part of its semiconductor production until 2012 when Samsung Display became a separate company from Samsung Electronics. Therefore, workers’ exposure to chemicals in semiconductor factories has occurred over many years, and the working environment in the past may have been worse than in recent years in factories with upgraded processes. Also, as mentioned above, the death of the 22-year-old female worker due to leukemia may have drawn increased public and regulatory concerns about semiconductor factories.
Just as the electronics industry has grown rapidly in South Korea, the issue of occupational diseases has rapidly emerged since 2007 and continues to this day. To resolve these occupational disease issues, various solutions have been proposed and implemented. After examining the 30-year history of occupational diseases in South Korea, it was stated that changes should be made at the system level rather than at the program or project level, and that goals and directions for all stakeholders should be interlinked and unified.10 A national strategy needs to be developed to identify, approve, and prevent occupational diseases—not only in the electronics industry but across all industries, particularly in SMEs. This strategy should include strengthening the relationship between large companies and their partners, studying the working environments of SMEs, and enhancing the occupational health and safety role of unions in SMEs, as discussed above.
This study analyzed occupational disease compensation in high-tech industries like semiconductors and displays, but faced limitations. First, the total worker population for the data sources was unknown, preventing calculation of disease rates. Earlier, it was stated that the occupational disease approval rate in Korean semiconductor companies was higher than in LCD companies, and it was assumed that this was influenced by the development periods of the two industries. However, a direct comparison is difficult because the working populations of the two industries differ. For the same reason, there is a limitation that the number of workers in both large companies and SMEs is unknown.
Second, the study could not definitively establish a medical or scientific link between work environments and diseases, reflecting the nature of compensation insurance as a social agreement. However, the study uniquely examines how compensation for occupational diseases has evolved in South Korea, particularly in high-tech industries, offering valuable insights not commonly covered by other studies.
In summary, during South Korea's rapid economic growth from the 1960s to the 1980s, occupational illnesses, especially in the semiconductor and display industries, were largely ignored due to their perceived clean image. This study examines the historical significance of these occupational illnesses and their impact on South Korea’s workers’ compensation system, analyzing government data from 2012 to 2023. The 2007 death of a young semiconductor worker from leukemia sparked social controversy and raised awareness about occupational diseases, leading to more claims and higher approval rates. Large companies had a higher approval rate (55.6%) compared to SMEs (38.0%), primarily due to better documentation and unionization. Most claims were for cancers, with brain cancer having the highest approval rate. The semiconductor industry had higher claim and approval rates than the LCD industry likely due to longer operational history and greater chemical exposure.
CONCLUSIONS
The death of a young worker in semiconductor chip plant from leukemia in 2007 became a social issue and raised awareness about workers' health concern in the high-tech electronic industry in Korea by the effort of a public interest organization helping the affected workers and their families, SHARPS. Two significant Supreme Court rulings in 2017 lowered the burden of proof in workers' compensation claims and were reflected to the government policies and systems in 2018, which resulted in higher number of claims and approvals afterwards. This trend of workers compensation claims and approvals has been limited to large corporations.
Abbreviations
KWCWS
Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service
SHARPS
Supporters for the Health and Rights of People in the Semiconductor Industry
SME
small- and medium-sized enterprises
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Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Author contributions
Conceptualization: Kong JO. Data curation: Lee J. Project administration: Ha K. Supervision: Chung J, DiGangi J. Visualization: Ha K. Writing - original draft: Yoon C. Writing - review & editing: Di-Gangi J.
NOTES
Fig. 1.
Trend of workers compensation claims for occupational diseases and approvals in electronics industry in South Korea.
Fig. 2.
Number of claims, approvals, and approval rates for occupational diseases by cancer type and non-cancer diseases.
Fig. 3.
Comparison of the number of claims, approvals, and approval rates for occupational diseases by industry and company size. SME: small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Table 1.
Number of claims, approvals, and approval rates of occupational diseases in the electronics industry according to company size by year
| Year |
Electronics |
All industries |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Large corporations |
Small and medium enterprises |
Total |
Total |
|||||||||
| No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | |
| 2012 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 | 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 1 | 100.0 | -a | - | - |
| 2013 | 2 | 1 | 50.0 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 3 | 1 | 33.3 | - | - | - |
| 2014 | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 5 | 0 | 0.0 | 7 | 0 | 0.0 | - | - | - |
| 2015 | 9 | 0 | 0.0 | 3 | 0 | 0.0 | 12 | 0 | 0.0 | - | - | - |
| 2016 | 14 | 3 | 21.4 | 2 | 1 | 50.0 | 16 | 4 | 25.0 | - | - | - |
| 2017 | 8 | 5 | 62.5 | 2 | 1 | 50.0 | 10 | 6 | 60.0 | - | - | - |
| 2018 | 10 | 9 | 90.0 | 3 | 1 | 33.3 | 13 | 10 | 76.9 | 10,006 | 6,306 | 63.0 |
| 2019 | 24 | 21 | 87.5 | 7 | 4 | 57.1 | 31 | 25 | 80.6 | 14,206 | 9,173 | 64.6 |
| 2020 | 4 | 2 | 50.0 | 7 | 4 | 57.1 | 11 | 6 | 54.5 | 14,422 | 9,085 | 63.0 |
| 2021 | 19 | 11 | 57.9 | 12 | 5 | 41.7 | 31 | 16 | 51.6 | 16,441 | 10,383 | 63.2 |
| 2022 | 13 | 6 | 46.2 | 5 | 2 | 40.0 | 18 | 8 | 44.4 | 17,222 | 10,836 | 62.9 |
| 2023 | 18 | 10 | 55.6 | 3 | 1 | 33.3 | 21 | 11 | 52.4 | 18,523 | 11,017 | 59.5 |
| Totalb | 124 (88) | 69 (59) | 55.6 (67.0) | 50 (37) | 19 (17) | 38.0 (45.9) | 174 (125) | 88 (76) | 50.6 (60.8) | 90,820 | 56,800 | 62.5 |
Table 2.
Types of occupational disease claims, approvals, and approval rates in electronics industry in South Korea according to company size by year
Table 3.
Major occupational disease lawsuits in the semiconductor industry and their resulting rulings and policy impacts
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XML DownloadOccupational disease issues in high-tech industries of South Korea: analysis of governmental data on the semiconductor and display industries
Fig. 1. Trend of workers compensation claims for occupational diseases and approvals in electronics industry in South Korea.
Fig. 2. Number of claims, approvals, and approval rates for occupational diseases by cancer type and non-cancer diseases.
Fig. 3. Comparison of the number of claims, approvals, and approval rates for occupational diseases by industry and company size. SME: small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 3.
Occupational disease issues in high-tech industries of South Korea: analysis of governmental data on the semiconductor and display industries
| Year | Electronics |
All industries |
||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large corporations |
Small and medium enterprises |
Total |
Total |
|||||||||
| No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | No. of applications | No. of approval | Approval rate (%) | |
| 2012 | 1 | 1 | 100.0 | 0 | 0 | - | 1 | 1 | 100.0 | - |
- | - |
| 2013 | 2 | 1 | 50.0 | 1 | 0 | 0.0 | 3 | 1 | 33.3 | - | - | - |
| 2014 | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 5 | 0 | 0.0 | 7 | 0 | 0.0 | - | - | - |
| 2015 | 9 | 0 | 0.0 | 3 | 0 | 0.0 | 12 | 0 | 0.0 | - | - | - |
| 2016 | 14 | 3 | 21.4 | 2 | 1 | 50.0 | 16 | 4 | 25.0 | - | - | - |
| 2017 | 8 | 5 | 62.5 | 2 | 1 | 50.0 | 10 | 6 | 60.0 | - | - | - |
| 2018 | 10 | 9 | 90.0 | 3 | 1 | 33.3 | 13 | 10 | 76.9 | 10,006 | 6,306 | 63.0 |
| 2019 | 24 | 21 | 87.5 | 7 | 4 | 57.1 | 31 | 25 | 80.6 | 14,206 | 9,173 | 64.6 |
| 2020 | 4 | 2 | 50.0 | 7 | 4 | 57.1 | 11 | 6 | 54.5 | 14,422 | 9,085 | 63.0 |
| 2021 | 19 | 11 | 57.9 | 12 | 5 | 41.7 | 31 | 16 | 51.6 | 16,441 | 10,383 | 63.2 |
| 2022 | 13 | 6 | 46.2 | 5 | 2 | 40.0 | 18 | 8 | 44.4 | 17,222 | 10,836 | 62.9 |
| 2023 | 18 | 10 | 55.6 | 3 | 1 | 33.3 | 21 | 11 | 52.4 | 18,523 | 11,017 | 59.5 |
| Total |
124 (88) | 69 (59) | 55.6 (67.0) | 50 (37) | 19 (17) | 38.0 (45.9) | 174 (125) | 88 (76) | 50.6 (60.8) | 90,820 | 56,800 | 62.5 |
| Disease type | Large corporations |
Small- and medium-sized enterprises |
Total |
||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. of claims | No. of approvals | Approval rate (%) | No. of claims | No. of approvals | Approval rate (%) | No. of claims | No. of approvals | Approval rate (%) | |
| Lymphohematopoietic cancers | 46 | 27 | 58.7 | 17 | 7 | 41.2 | 63 | 34 | 54.0 |
| Breast cancer | 27 | 13 | 48.1 | 11 | 5 | 45.5 | 38 | 18 | 47.4 |
| Lung cancer | 14 | 9 | 64.3 | 12 | 5 | 41.7 | 26 | 14 | 53.8 |
| Brain cancer | 16 | 13 | 81.3 | 0 | 0 | - | 16 | 13 | 81.3 |
| Other cancers | 13 | 5 | 38.5 | 8 | 2 | 25.0 | 21 | 7 | 33.3 |
| Non-cancer diseases | 8 | 2 | 25.0 | 2 | 0 | 0.0 | 10 | 2 | 20.0 |
| Total | 124 | 69 | 55.6 | 50 | 19 | 38.0 | 174 | 88 | 50.6 |
| Year | Major events for occupational disease in electronics |
|---|---|
| 2007 | A compensation claim for the death of a 22-year-old female worker due to leukemia was not accepted by the KWCWS |
| 2014 | The above case was approved by the Administrative Court |
| 2017 | The Supreme Court takes a flexible stance on causality as it approves two occupational disease cases in the electronics industry |
| 2018 | The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced the policy of improvement of industrial injury recognition procedure for semiconductor and display workers - Reducing the excessive burden of proof on workers and expanding industrial injury protection support |
Table 1. Number of claims, approvals, and approval rates of occupational diseases in the electronics industry according to company size by year
Data not available; Values in the parenthesis are “data for 2018–2023 for comparison with data for all industries”.
Table 2. Types of occupational disease claims, approvals, and approval rates in electronics industry in South Korea according to company size by year
Table 3. Major occupational disease lawsuits in the semiconductor industry and their resulting rulings and policy impacts
KWCWS: Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service.
