South Korea to fine companies up to 5% of profit for recurring fatal accidents: ministry

South Korea will introduce a new industrial safety regulation that will fine companies with more than three workers dying from workplace accidents each year up to 5% of operating profit, the labour ministry said on Monday.

The government will also revise industrial safety law to strip construction companies, which are repeatedly ordered to suspend work due to fatal accidents, of their licences, the ministry said in a statement.

President Lee Jae Myung, who took office in June, has stressed the importance of improving South Korea's job safety and has ordered the labour minister to bring in tough new rules to punish employers for repeated fatal accidents.

Last year, 589 people died in job-related accidents, nearly half of them in construction.

"Industrial accidents cause significant losses to the national economy, not only hurting the lives of people but also damaging the productivity of companies," Labour Minister Kim Young-hoon told a briefing.

The minister said it was a basic responsibility of the government to ensure people did not die at their place of work.

The changes will require parliament to amend the law governing industrial safety, Kim said.

Last month, parliament, which is controlled by Lee's liberal Democratic Party, passed a revision to the country's labour union act to strengthen the rights of contract workers so they can deal directly with the original contractor.

Kim cited the hiring of subcontractors by large companies, which have been accused of trying to evade legal responsibility by outsourcing dangerous work, as one of the reasons so many industrial accidents persist.