A Service Idea That Connects Departing Workers With Work Left Behind

Investment rose, but hiring did not rise evenly

Venture investment in the first half of 2026 reached KRW 8.8676 trillion, up 54.3% from the same period a year earlier. The number of funded companies also rose 17% to 2,296. Since investment grew far faster than the number of funded companies, a small number of large deals appear to have had a substantial effect. These figures come from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (중소벤처기업부), the Korean government ministry responsible for small businesses and ventures.

But employment across 8,003 unlisted startups and small and medium-sized enterprises tracked by The VC (더브이씨) rose only 0.5% from the end of 2025, to 207,533 people. Among companies with five consecutive years of comparable data, there were 454 more departures than hires in the first half of the year. Investment and job growth moved at very different speeds.

Employment at companies that had raised investment within the past year grew 10.4%. At companies that had not raised investment during the same period, it fell 2.1%. This does not prove that investment directly caused hiring growth, but it clearly separated the companies that had capacity to hire from those that did not.

The gap also varied by sector. Gaming lost 839 people and content lost 739, a combined decline of 1,578 people, while semiconductor and display companies and manufacturing and chemicals companies added jobs. Some job seekers may need to change sectors, not simply employers.

Employment tracking stopped for 307 companies in the first half. This includes not only closures but also companies that fell to three or fewer employees, so it should not be read as a closure count. Still, the combined employment effect of newly tracked and removed companies was a decline of 2,274 people. When a company shrinks, it can leave behind not only departing people but also work with no owner.

A way to handle departing people and their work together

Assume Sujin is the operations lead at an 18-person game studio. The company is running on revenue from its existing games without new investment, and several employees are leaving around the same time as projects contract. Sujin now handles departures more often than hiring.

Today, Sujin repeatedly copies each departing employee’s name into payroll settlement documents, lists of active accounts, equipment-return lists, and work-handover documents. She separately asks the development team about repository permissions and the sales team about customer contacts and unanswered inquiries. Sometimes she discovers only after the final working day that a paid account is still active or that customer replies have stopped.

People’s work histories are not properly retained either. Managers who worked with an employee know what that person did well, but do not have time to write a recommendation. Other companies see only a résumé and struggle to distinguish why a project stopped from the individual’s ability. Departing workers must explain their experience again, while companies search again for similar people.

A new service could start two streams of work from a single departure registration. The first transfers accounts, equipment, customers, and ongoing work to the next owner. The second, if the departing worker agrees, shows their experience and recommendations to companies that are hiring. Instead of vague praise, a recommendation would include the work performed, the period worked together, and results the recommender directly verified.

Rather than listing remaining work by employee, Sujin sees a list organized around customers, projects, next deadlines, recent decisions, and the new owner. Work without an assigned owner remains marked in red, and she can make a temporary request to an external specialist or shared staff at another small company. The completion time and the person who confirmed it are recorded, so the record can be used again at the next departure.

Hiring companies see more than a list of former employees. They see availability dates, desired work, verified experience, and the person making the recommendation, then request an interview. Showing how game-production experience can be used in other fields can also make sector moves easier. As actual hires and post-hire retention accumulate, the service can show which experience leads to which next role.

Some work must still remain with people. Company leaders and labor or legal specialists need to assess the departure decision, wage and severance settlement, customer consent, contract transfer, and fairness of recommendation content. What becomes hard to copy is not the interface or automation. It is the company relationships that recommend departing workers, trust from people who actually worked together, records that show work handovers are complete, and a network of companies that reports hiring outcomes back.

Abroad, the connection model developed beyond a list

After layoffs in 2020, Uber created the Uber Talent Directory, where departing workers who consented could publish their experience, location, and portfolio. The initial directory included more than 500 former employees, and outside companies could contact them directly. Fees for job seekers and hiring companies were not disclosed, nor was the number of actual hires.

The case shows how to create a public directory quickly, but it also leaves a limit. Registration numbers alone do not show how many interviews and hires occurred. A similar service in Korea should track the path from registration to interview, hiring, and employment lasting at least three months.

During its restructuring in 2022, Singapore-based recruitment company Glints did more than publish an alumni talent list. It introduced departing workers to existing client companies across six Southeast Asian markets, and provided résumé and interview training as well as recommendation letters. Separate fees and re-employment numbers were not disclosed, but the important point is that it used existing hiring relationships to place departing workers.

Any company can quickly build a directory. By contrast, relationships that let someone call companies they already work with, recommend a specific candidate, and receive interview outcomes back are difficult to reproduce quickly. This is a case where distribution channels and trust remain more durable than technology.

Singapore’s Career Conversion Programme uses a Place-and-Train model: employers hire job seekers first, provide workplace training, and receive government support for wages and training costs. It does not charge job seekers a fee. It goes beyond a simple job-seeker list by addressing the cost of adapting after hiring.

An impact evaluation by Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry found that participants’ wages were 2.5% higher in their first year after placement and 5.8% to 6.5% higher over the following four years, while employment retention was 3.9 percentage points higher. The case shows that outcomes can be measured when introductions are tied to training and continued employment rather than ending at referral.

Four things you could build now

1. A recommendation directory for people leaving completed projects

• What: A service that introduces workers leaving completed game or content projects to other companies, supported by verified recommendations from former colleagues.
• Users: Production companies with 20 to 100 employees that need to reduce teams because projects have stopped, and other production companies that want to interview experienced people immediately.
• Why now: Employment in gaming and content is declining, while hiring at funded technology companies is growing. A network is needed to move people within and beyond their sector.
• First screen: Show role, availability date, projects worked on, recommender, and interview-request status in one view.

2. Shared operations staff for three small companies

• What: One verified person handles work that is not needed every day, such as organizing accounting materials, customer inquiries, and hiring schedules, across several companies.
• Users: Companies with 5 to 20 employees that cannot afford to hire a new full-time operations person because they have not raised investment.
• Why now: Each company may struggle to hire one person, but experienced people released through departures and recurring work that cannot stop are increasing together.
• First screen: Use a calendar to show open time over the next four weeks, work the person can take on, confirmation from previous companies, and requested hours by company.

3. A cleanup inbox for accounts and work left after departure

• What: When a departure date is entered, the service assigns account shutdowns, equipment returns, customer handovers, and checks on ongoing work to responsible people, then keeps completion records.
• Users: Companies with 10 to 50 employees where one person manages payroll, accounts, and contracts without a dedicated HR team.
• Why now: As headcount falls, departure administration can increase while the operations staff needed to check it may be reduced first.
• First screen: Show days remaining until departure and incomplete accounts, customers, and equipment in risk order.

4. Handing over customers and ongoing work from shrinking companies

• What: Help companies reducing a business line transfer remaining maintenance, delivery, and inquiry-response work, with customer consent, to verified other companies.
• Users: Enterprise software makers closing a specific business line and customer companies that may suddenly lose their service provider.
• Why now: When a company shrinks and customer relationships and work records disappear with it, both departing workers and customers must explain the same context again.
• First screen: Show customers whose consent is complete, remaining contract periods, next deadlines, required experience, and confirmation status from companies seeking to take over. Personal-data and contract-transfer procedures need separate verification before launch.

One thing to check in 30 minutes today

Ask an operations manager at a game or content company to map one recent departure process from beginning to end, excluding the company name and personal information. If they identify two or more problems involving accounts, customers, or ongoing work that were discovered late, and say they would join a paid trial to prevent the same mistake, the cleanup inbox for accounts and work left after departure is worth building first.

Why this matters where you are

Check whether companies in your market record what happens after an employee leaves: not only the next job, but also account access, customer obligations, and unfinished work. Funding, labor rules, and public employment support may differ from the examples here, but the handover failures can be examined directly. Start with one recent departure and identify the records that would have prevented work from being missed.