The number of executives at South Korea’s major firms expanded 4.5 percent on-year in the first quarter of the year despite the coronavirus pandemic, a corporate tracker said.

A total of 353 leading companies in Asia’s fourth-largest economy had a combined 14,418 executives as of end-March this year, up from 13,803 a year earlier, according to the Leaders Index.

The figure covers companies out of the country’s top 500 corporations by sales that have disclosed their first-quarter business reports so far.

The Leaders Index attributed the increase to major companies’ record earnings in the January-March period in spite of the prolonged COVID-19 crisis. (Yonhap)