Comparing The Number And Diversity Of The “Big Four” K-Pop Labels’ Employees

While the term “Big Three” used to be more common when referring to the biggest K-Pop companies in the industry, these days it’s much more widely accepted that there is a “Big Four”. These labels consist of SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and most recently, HYBE Labels.

All of these companies are highly successful in different ways, with idols that debut under them almost guaranteed to get a lot of public attention and good marketing. Interestingly, however, these four labels have drastically different numbers of employees working under them, as recently revealed by an online forum post.

At this time, HYBE Labels has a total of 707 employees, 228 of which are men and 479 women. Their full-time employees are 209 men and 466 women, while their temporary employees are 19 men and 13 women.

Additionally, here’s a look at the employees of their subsidiaries:

• BIGHIT MUSIC: 106 employees
• Pledis Entertainment: 106 employees
• BELIFT LAB: 61 employees
• Source Music: 48 employees
• ADOR: 38 employees
• KOZ Entertainment: 40 employees

HYBE Labels’ employee data | The Qoo

SM Entertainment has the second-most employees of the “Big Four”, with 680 according to the data. 208 of them are men and 472 are women, which are divided into their full-time employees (199 men and 460 women) and temporary employees (9 men and 12 women).

SM Entertainment’s employee data | The Qoo

Out of these labels, JYP Entertainment has, perhaps surprisingly, the lowest number of employees. They currently have 356 people under their employment, 126 of which are men and 230 women. Their full-time employees are split into 126 men and 226 women, while they only have four female temporary employees.

JYP Entertainment’s employee data | The Qoo

Finally, YG Entertainment is listed as having 452 employees at this time. Similarly to the other three labels, they have more female than male employees, with 189 men and 263 women working under them. Their full-time employees are split into 166 men and 234 women, while they also have 23 male and 29 female temporary employees.

YG Entertainment’s employee data | The Qoo

It’s interesting to see how these four key players in the K-Pop world differ in terms of their employees, especially with some of them having drastically more people working for them than others!