| Eduwill CEO Kim Jae-hwan |
Eduwill, a provider of online education services for adults who seek to become public servants or to get licenses for jobs, is facing growing complaints from employees about its series of measures to reduce welfare benefits, according to industry officials, Wednesday.
Their complaints mainly resulted from the company's request to return to a five-day work week.
In 2019, Eduwill started implementing a four-day workweek system, but its deteriorating profits led the company to ask some of its departments to return to an ordinary five-day workweek system, so as to avoid hiring additional employees.
In addition, the education firm froze the annual salaries of its employees this year and stopped providing them with various bonuses. Its employees have also been unable to enjoy a 30-minute break time from 4 p.m.
Eduwill workers have cried foul over those measures, criticizing the management on Blind, an anonymous chat app for verified employees.
"The management is shifting their responsibility onto the workers," an Eduwill employee said.
Some of them reportedly left the company in protest against the worsening labor conditions, although Eduwill explained that the number of workers who have left the company over the past six months is not bigger than the average number of employees who left the company before it decided to reduce welfare costs.
"The education industry tends to have higher turnover rates than other sectors," an Eduwill spokesperson said. "Once the company turns a profit, management will resume the suspended welfare policies and raise wages."
Late last year, Eduwill's management decided to cut their own salaries voluntarily and reduce unnecessary marketing costs, in order to brace for the prolonged economic downturn. Eduwill CEO Kim Jae-hwan said at that time that the company would be able to upgrade its business model through crisis management, considering its great growth potential.
Such a measure came after the company faced questions about its financial stability.
Last July, Korea Ratings expressed skepticism about Eduwill, pointing out the intensifying competition with other education service providers, such as Hackers and MegaStudy.
"Following the transition to managing COVID-19 as endemic, the online education market is expected to be stagnant," the domestic credit ratings agency said in a report.
It added that Eduwill's growth will be limited in its flagship businesses, considering the falling competition rates for public servant positions, as well as the possibility of the housing market slump causing a decline in the number of applicants taking the test to become licensed real estate agents.