A growing number of businesses here are joining a recent move of granting regular status to their contract workers, responding to enhanced calls for them to shoulder heavier social responsibilities.

On Tuesday, SK Group announced it will elevate the status of up to 5,800 of its temporary workers to regulars this year and lower the proportion of irregulars to around 3 percent by 2015.

Following similar announcements made by Hanwha and Shinsegae in recent months, more than 20,000 contract workers at the nation’s top 20 conglomerates are to see their status upgraded within the year.

“We had continued related talks since last year as part of our shared-growth projects,” said an SK Group official, declining any connection between the latest decision and the imprisonment of chairman Chey Tae-won in January.

Many of the employees subject to benefit from the decision are those employed in the customer services or telemarketing units at the affiliates of SK Telecom or SK Planet.

Others are employed at the sister companies of other SK affiliates such as SK Networks and SK Securities, mostly in units handling network maintenance and marketing.

Of the total 79,000 employees at SK, about 10,000 are currently estimated to be irregular workers. When the 5,800 workers are granted regular status, the ratio of irregulars would decline from 12 percent to 4 percent.

Industry watchers say the latest decision by the nation’s fourth-largest conglomerate would affect other major businesses here that have already been facing increased pressure to hire more regular workers.

Hyundai Motor has also continued talks with its labor union to directly hire some 3,500 out of the total 6,500 nonregular workers who the carmaker has been indirectly supplied by manpower agents.

Lotte Group, whose retail units hire many contract workers, is also known to be mulling an idea to turn some 1,000 contract workers into regulars.

It remains to be seen, however, how much momentum the latest move could gain in the coming months to become a real trend among local conglomerates.

“It’s not an easy decision for companies considering the huge costs that follow,” said an industry source. “They would closely watch the government’s move and social atmosphere.”

Shinsegae would spend an additional 70 billion won ($63.6 million) annually following its decision to upgrade 11,300 workers to regulars, while SK also would face an extra 15 billion won to 20 billion won in labor costs.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)