Original article in Korean is at this link.

Ostracism can happen anywhere. One in three office workers says “I have experienced being ostracized/bullied at the office.”

On the 31st of July the jobs website Saramin published the results of its survey of 3,035 office workers, finding that 30.4% reported having been ostracized or bullied at work.

The study that more women (34.1%) than men (27.6%) complained of having experienced such treatment.

When asked what happened in those situations, 57.2% said that “co-workers had secret conversations about me”, 34.7% said that “I was the only person not informed of company dinners and other gatherings”, 25.6% said that “people ignored me when I greeted them”, and 20.8% said that “i was given trivial work such as running errands.”

The average time period of the episodes was seven months, the study found. 43.2% of the episodes were instigated by superiors, followed by senior co-workers, same-level co-workers, and junior co-workers.

33.5% of office workers said that they had quit jobs because of stress over being ostracized or bullied. 8.6% sought mental counselling.