Despite the government’s continued conciliation, the return of majors is still a long way off. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, only 879 (8.4%) of the 10,509 residents of 211 training hospitals actually went to work as of the 30th of last month. Based on 100 training hospitals, only 714 out of 9,992 people (7.1%) are working. “The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently sent an official letter to the heads of training hospitals across the country to meet with doctors to confirm their intention to return to the hospital and their future career,” said Jeon, a controller. “If you look at the institutions that submitted related data, the response rate for returning majors is less than 10 percent.”
Doctors wrote these articles to try to justify the strikes beyond the real reason.
What triggered the strikes were the opening of more positions in healthcare thus possibly effecting doctors’ bottom lines.
Edit: I’m also having trouble finding any sources that say “like 90%” of residents quit.
From one of the cited articles in the study: