At 5:30 PM, Coupang employees boarded the 45-seater bus in front of the general terminal in Cheonan City. “Welcome!” said Soo-il Kim, a driver of chartered bus company Zero Cool, as he greeted the passengers.
Soo-il runs the daily morning and afternoon shuttle bus to and from the Coupang Mokcheon Fulfillment Center, which is 25 minutes from Cheonan. On the driver’s side window is a mini sign displaying “A Trip to Remember,” and there are dozens of music CDs stacked next to the audio player. “I was in charge of 40 mountaineering clubs at one time and played songs as a tour bus driver across the country, but now I don’t use it,” Soo-il said with a laugh.
But just a couple years ago, Soo-il was completely out of work. When the pandemic broke out in early 2020, the tourism industry shut down, and demand for chartered tour buses disappeared. For the first time in 40 years as a driver, Soo-il was effectively unemployed. To make matters worse, his wife’s Buddhist supply store that she had been running for seven years also went out of business due to COVID-19.
The desperate couple ended up moving to his mother’s house to use their own house deposit to pay for their son’s tuition. It was in December of 2020 when Soo-il finally was given a ray of hope. Zero Cool would resume operations as a shuttle operator for Coupang, and Soo-il would be reinstated. “When I got back behind the wheel, I really felt like I could fly,” said Soo-il. “I already paid off a fourth of a 40 million won loan, and I can live again with my head held high.”
Throughout the pandemic, Coupang has continued to invest in regions across Korea, building fulfillment centers and creating thousands of new jobs in the country. For example, over the last two years, Coupang announced plans to build new fulfillment centers in 11 different regions, totaling over 1.6 trillion won (around 1.24 billion dollars) in investments. This fast-paced expansion has led to more demand for commuting services, which is what led Coupang to hire shuttle bus operators for its employees.
Of the five chartered bus companies hired by Coupang, four are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including Zero Cool and Dongyoung Tourism, which operate fleets of 200-300 buses each. In 2019, they posted 45 billion won and 40 billion won in revenue, respectively. However, with the evisceration of tourism demand the following year, their revenues dropped over 75%, and they both had to downsize and put many employees on unpaid leave. Thanks to Coupang, however, they have managed to recover their lost revenue at a rapid pace. Zero Cool CEO Jeong-seok Hong said, “We are likely to recover 80% of last year’s decreased sales with Coupang by the end of this year.” Dongyoung Tourism CEO Yang-ho Moon also said, “This year, we expect to recover about 75% of the decrease in sales from last year, and all buses are now operating normally.”
Many bus drivers employed by these companies have been grateful for the new opportunity. Jae-bok Choi, a bus driver from Dongyoung Tourism, said that during the pandemic, “I went through unpaid leave for several months, which I had never experienced even during SARS and MERS.” He took on additional debt to pay his mortgage when he ran out of income, but now, with his current salary, he was able to pay that off. He is very happy with his new job—“My daily life has been invigorated by meeting Coupang employees in their 20s and 30s who are full of enthusiasm,” said Jae-bok.
“As the Coupang shuttle buses guarantee a stable job, we have been getting more and more calls from drivers who had been facing difficult economic circumstances from having to take on different temporary work,” said Hoon Joo, a director of Onbus. “Unlike regular companies and institutions with stagnant employment, Coupang has great opportunities for further growth as investment and employment in new fulfillment centers expand explosively.” He added, “We hope to grow into a company that provides more employment and welfare benefits as we strengthen our commuter shuttle services.”
