The number of employees for South Korea's major companies has declined by nearly 30,000 over the past three years, with global tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. having the largest workforce, a corporate tracker said Tuesday.

The combined headcount of the country's top 100 firms stood at about 1.39 million as of the end of 2020, down slightly by over 27,000 from three years earlier, according to the CXO Institute.

Last year alone, the number decreased by 9,000 from the previous year, marking the third consecutive year of decline.

Nearly 63 percent of the firms' total payrolls belonged to those companies' workplaces in the country, with the remainder hired by their overseas operations.

Samsung Electronics was the largest employer with about 268,000 last year, but its headcount has been on the wane after peaking at nearly 327,000 in 2017.

The number of Samsung employees hired by its overseas workplaces took up 60.4 percent of its total workforce.

Leading automaker Hyundai Motor Co. came next with about 121,400, followed by LG Electronics Inc. with some 75,900 and display titan Samsung Display Co. with nearly 72,900, according to the institute. (Yonhap)