Fans watch the idols and the games. Almost nobody counts the people who run the companies behind them. These are 14 listed Korean firms, from their own filings — how long staff stay, how many there are, and who they are.
How long people stay
Company-reported average tenure across all employees, in years, from the latest annual filing. Shown in two groups because they are different kinds of business — not as one ranking.
Entertainment agencies and producers
Cube Entertainment2.2 yr avg · 170 employees · founded 13 yr ago
HYBE3.0 yr avg · 893 employees · founded 22 yr ago
YG Entertainment4.0 yr avg · 438 employees · founded 29 yr ago
SM Entertainment4.1 yr avg · 765 employees · founded 32 yr ago
JYP Entertainment4.2 yr avg · 496 employees · founded 30 yr ago
Studio Dragon4.8 yr avg · 179 employees · founded 10 yr ago
Contentree JoongAng5.2 yr avg · 140 employees · founded 39 yr ago
CJ ENM6.9 yr avg · 3,105 employees · founded 32 yr ago
K-pop labels, drama studios and broadcasters. These are younger businesses with high project turnover, and the average time an employee stays is correspondingly short.
Game studios
Krafton3.2 yr avg · 2,118 employees · founded 19 yr ago
Pearl Abyss4.5 yr avg · 733 employees · founded 16 yr ago
Com2uS5.1 yr avg · 1,505 employees · founded 28 yr ago
Kakao Games5.3 yr avg · 473 employees · founded 13 yr ago
Netmarble5.9 yr avg · 795 employees · founded 15 yr ago
NCsoft7.5 yr avg · 3,262 employees · founded 29 yr ago
Game publishers and developers. They are larger and, on this measure, keep staff longer than the agencies do.
A workforce split by gender
Women as a share of total headcount, from the same filings. The two groups sit on opposite sides of the halfway line, and it is not close.
SM Entertainment71.8% women
JYP Entertainment70.6% women
HYBE68.3% women
YG Entertainment65.8% women
Cube Entertainment65.3% women
CJ ENM63% women
Studio Dragon60.3% women
Kakao Games38.5% women
Contentree JoongAng37.9% women
Netmarble36.1% women
Krafton34.9% women
Com2uS34.8% women
NCsoft32.8% women
Pearl Abyss28.9% women
The entertainment agencies are majority-women workforces; the game studios are majority-men. A 50% line is the reference — this is a composition, not a score.
Where these numbers come from
DART electronic disclosure (Financial Supervisory Service) — the employee and officer sections of each company’s annual report. Tenure, headcount and gender share are as the company filed them; we do not estimate any of them.
This is not a ranking, and not a judgement. A short average tenure at a young company is not a worse number than a long one at an old company — it is a different one. We put the figures side by side and name the reason they differ.
Not included: privately held agencies and studios, which file no comparable disclosure. One company on our first list — DAEA TI (045390) — was dropped after checking its filing: it makes railway signalling equipment, not music or games.
Company filings via DART. Figures reflect the latest annual report on file.