The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Han Sung-sook) announced the results of the ‘2024 SME Survey’. This survey is conducted annually to understand the overall management status of SMEs and is used as basic data for establishing SME support policies.
This year’s survey was characterized by a comprehensive overhaul of the survey targets, methods, and publication contents, allowing for a more detailed understanding of SME conditions by industry. Previously, companies with sales exceeding 500 million won were surveyed, mixing some small businesses and micro-enterprises. From this survey, the target criteria have been clarified to ‘SMEs excluding micro-enterprises’, allowing for a more accurate understanding of ‘medium and small enterprises’ excluding micro-enterprises overlapping with the ‘Micro-Enterprise Survey’.
According to the survey results, the sales of SMEs (excluding micro-enterprises) in 2024 amounted to 2,085 trillion won, with 7.92 million employees. By industry, ‘wholesale and retail trade’ (sales 649 trillion won, 31.1% / employees 1.007 million, 12.7%) and ‘manufacturing’ (sales 638 trillion won, 30.6% / employees 1.931 million, 24.4%) accounted for the highest proportions in both sales and employees. Compared to the ‘Basic Statistics of SMEs’, which targets all registered enterprises, sales increased slightly from 2023 (2,024 trillion won), while the number of employees decreased slightly from 2023 (8.14 million).
The Ministry plans to focus on policy support and institutional improvements to enhance the growth ecosystem and mutual growth of SMEs based on the main results of this survey. Additionally, to support the spread of rapidly growing SMEs through R&D, the TIPS program will be expanded, and the Korean STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer Program) will be introduced to further expand R&D support.