According to an analysis of the country's 100 largest companies by sales, compiled by the Korea CXO Research Institute and released on Monday, the number of executives rose by 109 or 1.6 percent from 7,028 to 7,137.
Despite the slight increase, executives accounted for just 0.83 percent of the total workforce, up from 0.82 percent a year earlier, keeping the ratio below 1 percent for the fifth consecutive year.
The combined number of employees, meanwhile, stood at 862,163 this year, up 1,087 or 0.1 percent from 861,076 a year earlier.
The proportion of executives fell from 0.95 percent in 2011 to a low of 0.76 percent in 2021 before rebounding to 0.82 percent in 2022. It then edged up to 0.83 percent in 2023 and 0.84 percent in 2024 before slipping to 0.82 percent in 2025.
Chipmaker SK hynix saw the largest increase in the number of executives among the companies surveyed, adding 72 or 35.5 percent to reach 275 this year, up from 203 a year earlier.
HD Hyundai Heavy Industries came next with 23 more executives, bringing its total to 132, followed by Korean Air, which added 12 to reach 84 from 72, and Mirae Asset Securities, which added 11 to reach 140.
In contrast, the number of executives at Hyundai Motor fell by 25 to 451 from 476 a year earlier, with the company seeing the largest decline among those surveyed. LG Electronics also saw its number of executives drop by 19 to 287.
Of the 100 companies, the number of executives increased at 52, declined at 38 and stayed unchanged at the remaining 10.
Meanwhile, tech giant Samsung Electronics had the largest number of unregistered executives with 1,108 as of the first half of this year.
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