More than one in four South Korean private business employees resides in Seoul, with nearly 22 percent of domestic business establishments located in the capital, data showed Monday.

According to the data from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, a total of 4.49 million people worked for Seoul‘s business establishments that employ at least one worker last year, up by 7.49 percent from a year earlier. The figure represented 25.42 percent of the country’s total business workers.

The number of business establishments in Seoul also rose by 1 percent in 2011 on-year to 729,728, accounting for 21.75 percent of the national total, according to the data.

By industry type, 17.4 percent, or the largest share, of workers served in the wholesale and retail businesses in Seoul last year, followed by dining and accommodation businesses with 9 percent and the construction field with 8.46 percent.

Among the business establishments in Seoul, more than half were in the fields of wholesale and retail sales, dining and accommodation, and transportation businesses, with restaurants, as a single business type, making up the largest share with 6.5 percent, followed by real estate agencies, pubs and hair salons, the data showed.

The number of non-alcohol beverage shops, such as cafes, showed the largest increase of 18.92 percent to 7,826 in 2011, while Internet cafes fell the most by 13.49 percent, the data showed.

A total of 1.86 million workers in business establishments in Seoul, or 41.43 percent, were female in 2011, up 6.54 percent from a year earlier, the data showed. The quality of their jobs had not improved, however, as women accounted for more than 60 percent of the city’s total unpaid workers employed in a family business. 

(Yonhap News)