대기업 일자리도 빼앗은 코로나19...두 달간 직원 만 명 급감

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted a number of South Korea's largest companies to lay off workers..
Those in the entertainment and food sectors have been the hardest hit, as our Kim Do-yeon reports. The COVID-19 outbreak has left many of South Korea's movie theaters empty.
There were only around 1-point-8 million viewers in March, one-eighth the number of viewers from the same time the previous year.
CGV, one of the largest cinema chains in South Korea, even had to temporarily close one third of its theaters.
Other large companies, mainly in the entertainment, food and service sectors, have also been directly hit by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Korean business analysis website CEO Score looked at the number of National Pension contributors to gauge the scale of COVID-19's impact on employment.
It found that the number of contributors had dropped by some 10-thousand-800 during February and March.
This shows a fall from the same period last year, when the number of people paying into the pension pot increased by some 3-thousand-four-hundred.
The retail sector was particularly badly hit, with more than 4-thousand job losses in February and March.
By company, CJ CGV had the most layoffs with around 2-thousand-3-hundred, followed by CJ Foodville and Starbucks Korea.
"Looking at the companies that had the most dismissals like CJ CGV, Lotte Shopping and Daiso, it is those that were directly affected by social distancing due to the COVID-19 outbreak."
It's a different story for the delivery sector though.
Coopang, a parcel delivery service company, hired 9-hundred-13 new employees in February and March, possibly benefiting from the increase in people ordering products for delivery during the social distancing period.
Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News