South Korea remains one of the worst countries in the world to work in, according to the 2025 International Trade Union Confederation(ITUC) Global Rights Index, which warns that workers’ rights around the world are in “free fall.”

The Brussels-based group, which represents 200 million workers in 170 countries around the world, released the annual report Monday and gave South Korea a 5, the second-worst rating possible, meaning its workers have no guarantee of basic labor rights.

The country got the same results as last year, finishing just one notch above countries where workers have no guarantee of rights due to the breakdown of the rule of law.

The ITUC said that in South Korea, as well as in Bahrain, Canada, Guatemala, the Netherlands and Peru, employers took advantage of weak laws and inadequate oversight to evade collective bargaining through delay tactics, refusal to negotiate, and agreements with employer-backed unions or nonrepresentative bodies. 

Of the 151 countries surveyed, only seven were given the top rating of 1: Germany, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland and Norway.

The ITUC said workers’ rights are diminishing on every continent, with Europe and the Americas recording their worst scores since the index began in 2014.

The report showed that in 72 percent of countries surveyed, workers had zero or reduced access to justice, while 45 percent of the countries restricted freedom of speech and assembly, and 87 percent violated the right to strike.

The ITUC also said workers’ rights and democracy are under sustained assault by far-right politicians and their nonelected billionaire backers, criticizing the U.S. Trump administration for taking “a wrecking ball to the collective labor rights of workers” and bringing anti-union billionaires into the heart of policymaking.