Posts mislead on numbers employed by South Korea's presidential office and the US White House

The claim was shared on Facebook on October 19.

The Korean-language post translates to English as: "Blue House employs.....1,700 people. White House.....1,300 people."

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Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, captured on October 26, 2021.

A similar claim was also shared on Facebook here, here, here and here.

But the claim is misleading.

The number of employees cited in the posts does not correspond with official records from the two countries.

A spokesperson for the Blue House told AFP that South Korea's presidential office employs 1,148 workers as of October 2021.

This figure represents the total employees working for three offices in the Blue House: the Office of the President, the Office of National Security and the Presidential Security Service.

The White House Office employs 560 people as of July 2021, according to this report submitted to the US Congress.

It is part of the Executive Office of the President, which according to its budget submission report to Congress in the fiscal year 2022 employs 2,008 "full-time equivalents" in 2021, most of whom work in buildings near the White House.

'Institutional differences'

Hahm Sung-deuk, a political science professor at Kyonggi University, told AFP there are "institutional differences" between the two offices which may explain the disparity between their staff numbers.

He said: "The White House directly employs officials who manage the executive branch's budget through the Office of Management and Budget, whereas in South Korea that role is assumed not by the Blue House but by the Finance Ministry."

Hahm went on to say that "taken overall, South Korea's presidential office is by no means oversized relative to that of the United States, which oversees a much bigger country."

In a statement, the Blue House said: "Each country has a different personnel and organisational structure for its executive office."