Where Has the Happy Workplace Gone? South Korea IKEA Exposed for Forcing Out Employees on Parental Leave, CEO's Cold Remarks Revealed

Swedish furniture giant IKEA, long known for its 'Nordic-style happy workplace' and flexible parental benefits, is now embroiled in a discrimination scandal in South Korea. According to a report by the Korean media outlet Kyunghyang Shinmun on the 10th, IKEA Korea's headquarters is under formal investigation by the country's Ministry of Employment and Labor for allegedly demoting multiple senior employees who legally applied for parental leave and engaging in workplace bullying to force them out. President Lee Jae-myung has also criticized the corporation immediately after the news broke.

The report has particularly angered South Korean netizens, especially toward Isabel Puig, the female CEO who took office in 2023. Despite publicly advocating for women's rights, Puig—herself a practicing lawyer and labor law expert—is accused of violating South Korea's Gender Equality in Employment Act. Internal meeting records leaked by employees reveal that Puig allegedly mocked Korean labor and unions during a closed-door international meeting, saying, 'Korean workers and unions are too stupid and easy to handle, even though it's legally difficult to fire them.'

According to whistleblower reports submitted to the Korean Labor Ministry and audio evidence provided by victim A (a director-level employee), CEO Isabel Puig personally assured A before her maternity leave: 'Although the company will undergo organizational restructuring in the second half of the year, rest assured and go have your baby. I guarantee you will return seamlessly to your original position and salary.'

However, when A returned to the office after her parental leave this year, she was not greeted with flowers, but with a cold demotion notice. Senior management informed her that due to organizational streamlining during her absence, her former department had been 'merged and eliminated,' and under new internal rules, she would be downgraded from a senior managerial role to a basic office administrative staff member. They even implied that if she refused the reassignment, she could be transferred to frontline store duties, such as moving goods.

When A formally protested to the CEO's office, the labor-lawyer-turned-CEO reportedly made a cold, discriminatory, and bullying remark in front of HR staff: 'While you were lying around comfortably at home with your family, enjoying such an easy life, do you really think your brain, now weakened, can keep up with the company's current high-speed pace—like a dishwasher spinning at full speed?'

Isabel then threatened A, offering a 'special severance' equivalent to one year's salary and assistance with unemployment benefits, on the condition that she sign a voluntary resignation letter. After A clearly refused, IKEA began isolating her, removing her from core business reporting groups.

In reality, this toxic labor practice is not an isolated case. Internal sources confirm that IKEA officially launched an organizational restructuring called 'Service Office Simplified Decision-Making' across key retail markets in Asia-Pacific and globally starting April 1, 2026. While this appears to be a move to reduce bureaucratic red tape and accelerate decision-making, many Korean frontline employees see it as a disguised mass layoff.

Numerous existing administrative and planning positions have been forcibly eliminated, forcing experienced employees to compete internally for a limited number of remaining roles. Otherwise, they face the same fate as A—either accepting a payout and leaving, or being humiliatingly reassigned to hourly store positions.

Facing media exposure, government investigation, and public backlash, IKEA Korea issued an emergency PR statement. While citing legal restrictions on disclosing details, the company repeatedly denied the allegations, claiming the CEO's discriminatory remarks were 'untrue,' and insisting that the organizational streamlining targeted specific roles, not individuals, and fully complied with South Korean labor laws.