South Korea Raised Its Soldiers’ Pay. Then Its Sergeants Disappeared

Featured photo: Newly graduated Republic of Korea Marine Corps noncommissioned officers after their graduation ceremony at Pohang, March 2026. Photo: Gunnery Sgt. Antonio Campbell, U.S. Marine Corps / Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

South Korea started paying its conscripts something close to a real salary, and its junior sergeants are paying the price. While a conscript sergeant’s base pay grew 2.5 times in five years, a junior NCO’s base pay rose 27%, and over roughly the same four years the military lost more than a third of its staff sergeants. The numbers come from Ministry of National Defense data obtained by Min Hong-chul, a member of the National Assembly’s defense committee, and released on October 28.

The rank that lost a third of its people

Most South Korean men are drafted and serve 18 months in the Army, even a star like Hyun Bin, who served in the Marine Corps. A hasa (staff sergeant) is different: a volunteer career soldier, the lowest rank of the professional NCO corps, the one who leads conscripts directly at the squad and platoon level. The military calls these people its “waist,” the middle that holds the body together.

That waist is getting thin, fast. The average number of staff sergeants on duty, including those on fixed-term contracts, fell from about 43,000 in 2021 to about 27,300 in 2025, a drop of roughly 15,700, or 36.5%. Over the same period, junior leaders as a whole (staff sergeants plus second and first lieutenants) shrank by about 18,000, and 87.2% of that loss was staff sergeants. The lieutenant ranks fell by just 11.2% (Money Today, Edaily, October 28, 2026).

Also read: Korea Out-Earns Germany and Japan Combined. Its Stocks Are the World's Cheapest.

While a conscript’s pay grew 2.5 times

The cause most people point to is conscript pay. A conscript sergeant’s (byeongjang) monthly base pay went from about $455 in 2021 to about $1,121 in 2026, up 146.5%. Over the same years, a first-year staff sergeant’s base pay went from about $1,254 to about $1,595, up 27.1%. Five years ago, a staff sergeant’s base pay was 2.8 times a conscript sergeant’s. Now it is 1.4 times (same reports).

The gap was narrowest in 2025. That year, a conscript sergeant could receive up to about $1,532 a month in total: his pay plus the “Tomorrow Preparation” subsidy, money the government adds to a soldier’s savings account. A first-year staff sergeant’s base salary that year was projected at about $1,445 (Wikitree, August 27, 2024). The subsidy is paid out as a lump sum at discharge, and staff sergeants get allowances on top of their pay. But base pay against base pay, the conscript who leaves after 18 months came out ahead of the staff sergeant who stays to lead him.

The problem isn’t who leaves. It’s who never comes in

Staff sergeants aren’t vanishing because they’re quitting. Discharges actually fell, from about 5,990 in 2021 to about 3,370 in 2025, and the share leaving each year dropped from 14% to 12%. What collapsed is the front door. The NCO recruitment rate was 91.5% in 2021 and 86.0% in 2022, then fell to 55.1% in 2023 and 50.1% in 2024. In 2025 it was still only 61.0%. “The center of gravity of the decline is not departures but commissioning,” Min said (Money Today).

2023, the year recruitment fell off a cliff, is also the year a conscript sergeant’s monthly pay first reached 1 million won (about $748) (Newsis, January 5, 2023). That year, the price gap between two paths shrank in a way nobody could miss: finish 18 months as a conscript and walk out, or stay on for years as an NCO and carry the responsibility.

New Army staff sergeants are commissioned at the May 2026 ceremony, streamed live by KFN, the Ministry of National Defense’s broadcaster.

The math behind a $30,650 salary

The ministry puts a first-year staff sergeant’s annual take-home pay in 2026 at about $30,650. But that figure includes an average of 23 hours of overtime a month and duty pay for about two weeknight shifts and one weekend shift. Add 48 hours of duty to 23 hours of overtime and the extra work alone comes to 71 hours a month, for a total of about 247 hours (Financial News, October 28, 2026). The salary that base pay can’t reach gets filled in with nights and weekends.

Korean readers split two ways. Under the Money Today story (538 comments), the most-liked comment read: “They should have raised pay for the officers and NCOs first, not the 18-month soldiers. They got the order wrong.” Under the Edaily story came the pushback: “They only serve 18 months. If you can’t accept that much, what then? With the education and ability it takes to apply as an NCO, do you think it’s easy to get treated that well anywhere else?” Both point to the same place. Staff sergeant is now a job that has to compete with every other job.

The ministry is negotiating with the Ministry of Planning and Budget to raise a first-year staff sergeant’s base pay by 6.6% next year, aiming for average monthly pay of about $2,243 (Financial News). The math is already done. This year, a conscript sergeant takes home $1,121 a month and leaves his unit after 18 months. The staff sergeant takes home $1,595 and stays in the unit those conscripts left behind.

Sources

• Ministry of National Defense data released by Rep. Min Hong-chul: Money Today, October 28, 2026, Edaily, October 28, 2026, Financial News, October 28, 2026
• 2025 conscript pay and Tomorrow Preparation subsidy, first-year staff sergeant pay: Wikitree, August 27, 2024
• Conscript sergeant pay of 1 million won in 2023: Newsis, January 5, 2023
• 18-month Army service: Military Manpower Administration, service overview (checked October 29, 2026)
• Dollar amounts converted at 1,337.7 won to the dollar (Seoul close, October 28, 2026), applied to all years so the comparisons hold.