Nearly seven out of 10 of South Korea's top 500 companies were found to have zero women at the executive level, according to the government Wednesday.

Among the country's top 500 firms in terms sales as of last year, 336 firms, or 67.2 percent, were found to have male-only executives as of last year, according to the Ministry of Gender and Equality.

The data was compiled from corporate filings from DART, an online repository of company filings operated by the Financial Supervisory Service.

Women, as of last year, amounted to 406, or 2.7 percent, of the total number of executives. The rate has grown slightly-yet-steadily, from 2.3 percent in 2014 and 2.4 percent in 2015.

The number of women at the executive was the highest in the small retail and wholesale sectors, standing at 4.9 percent. The construction industry had the lowest, with 0.8 percent.

The financial sector had the highest rate of women workers at 53.7 percent, but the rate of female executives fell to 2.7 percent from 3 percent in 2014.

"This shows that an increase in women's economic activity is not naturally leading into the expansion of their seats at the management level," a ministry official said.

The government said it plans to increase the scope of its affirmative action towards businesses, which calls for companies with relatively weak workplace equality to submit plans to hire more women and place more of them in management positions. (Yonhap)