Request a Demo
South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor (MoEL) recently made public the list of registered and assessed new chemical substances under Korean OSHA in 2025 Q1. It contains the corresponding information, including chemical name, CAS number, hazards, annual quantity, precautionary measures that must be taken to guarantee workers’ health, etc.
The list comprises 72 new chemical substances, among which 32, including “2-Methylpiperazine”, “Propyl-1,3-cyclopentadiene”, etc., have been found to possess hazards such as acute toxicity, skin corrosion/irritation, and reproductive toxicity, etc. The hazards are determined according to the revised Standards for Classification and Labeling of Chemical Substances and Material Safety Data Sheet, based on the toxicity data submitted by registrants.
Please refer to the MoEL Announcement No. 2025-162 for more details. The hazards and risks should be indicated on MSDS and displayed in the workplace. Korean OSHA emphasizes that companies must strictly adhere to the control measures to ensure that every employee (including foreign workers) can accurately understand the hazardous properties of chemicals and the protective requirements, effectively preventing occupational injury incidents. The MoEL prepared training materials in 17 different languages to describe the sections constituting the GHS label and how to understand them. See previous ChemLinked news - Korea Releases Training Materials for MSDS and GHS Label in 17 Languages.
For some new substances, although there are no hazards indicated in the list, in consideration of long or short-term exposure, employers still need to provide basic measures to protect workers’ health.
Background
In South Korea, companies should register new chemical substances under both K-REACH and K-OSHA prior to manufacture or import activities. K-REACH covers all new chemical substances regardless of quantities while under K-OSHA new substances < 0.1 t/y are exempt from registration. The Ministry of Environment (MoE) is responsible for K-REACH registration and transfers the data required under K-OSHA to the MoEL for assessment.
The MoEL and the National Institute of Chemical Safety (NICS) under MoE periodically publish the list of registered new chemical substances under K-OSHA and K-REACH respectively. The last update by the MoEL was made on December 23, 2024 (see MoEL Announcement No. 2024-500).
