<p class="msonormal"><span><font face="Arial" size="2">In a recent study entitled "Doing Business 2006" by the World Bank´s International Finance Corporation, Korea ranked 105<sup>th</sup> out of 155 countries in labor flexibility. In contrast, Hong Kong was ranked 3<sup>rd</sup>, Singapore 7<sup>th</sup>, Japan 20<sup>th</sup>, and Thailand was ranked 23<sup>rd</sup> for labor flexibility. The strength of Korea´s labor unions has given companies in Korea very little flexibility when it comes to hiring or firing workers as needed. According to this study, hiring a worker costs about 17% of the worker´s salary, while firing a worker costs an average of 90 weeks of the worker´s wages. It costs about 5% of salary to hire a worker in Hong Kong and 8.5% in the U.S., and it costs about 12.9 weeks´ wages to fire a worker in Hong Kong, and 0 weeks´ wages in the U.S.</font></span></p>
<p class="msonormal"><span><font face="Arial" size="2">Korea also rates a 45 on the rigidity of employment index (maximum = 100). In comparison, Hong Kong received a rating of 0 on the rigidity of employment index, while the U.S. rating is 3.</font></span></p>
<p class="msonormal"><span><font face="Arial" size="2">Despite being the 11<sup>th</sup> largest economy in the world, Korea is still not a hospitable place for starting a business, for which it was ranked 97<sup>th</sup> out of 155. The Korean government heavily regulates private sector businesses, requiring 12 procedures (on average) that must be undertaken in order to start a business, with each procedure requiring an average of 22 days. In Hong Kong, there are only 5 procedures, each requiring 11 days.</font></span></p>
<p class="msonormal"><span><font face="Arial" size="2">In other rankings, Korea came in 27<sup>th</sup> of 155 for overall ease of doing business, below a number of other Asian countries, including Singapore (2<sup>nd</sup>), Hong Kong (7<sup>th</sup>), Japan (10<sup>th</sup>), Thailand (20<sup>th</sup>), and Malaysia (21<sup>st</sup>).</font></span></p>
