[Editorial] Job blues

The employment situation for young people, women and older workers is deteriorating.

According to a Federation of Korean Industries report, released on Tuesday, that analyzed employment indices of a 10-year period (2014-2023), employment rates of Korean youth, women and workers over 55 rose somewhat over the time period but they ranked middle or low among 38 member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Korea's youth (aged 15-29) and women (aged 15-64) employment rates were 45 percent and 61.4 percent, respectively, in 2023. The employment rate of senior workers (aged 55-64) was 69.9 percent. More than half of Korean young people just took a break because they had nothing to do, while nearly 7 in 10 older workers kept working for a living.

Korea ranked 27th and 30th in youth and women employment rates, respectively, among OECD countries and 15th in senior employment rate.

Employment rates of the three age groups increased 4-6 percentage points, but the quality of their employment worsened.

The number of full-time regular workers in the youth group fell 400,000 from 10 years ago to 800,000 in 2023. The figure decreased by about 4.4 percent annually on average. In terms of the growth rate of this figure, Korea ranked bottom among OECD countries.

On the other hand, the number of part-time workers in the same group swelled from 380,000 to 560,000. Korea placed sixth among OECD members.

The narrow path to meaningful employment is a serious problem for young Koreans.

According to a recruitment market research by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, released on Tuesday, 82 percent of the companies that posted job openings in the first half of the year wanted to hire only experienced workers.

Of the companies researched, 15.4 percent were open to both inexperienced and experienced workers. A mere 2.6 percent wanted to hire only inexperienced workers as new employees.

It appears that offering students or recent graduates an opportunity to gain job experience is an urgent task. More than half (53.2 percent) of college graduates who sought jobs got no job experience at all while attending school. Student internship program linked to recruitment needs to be expanded.

According to the FKI report, the quality of jobs for women was falling, too. The share of low-income earners among salaried full-time women employees has decreased slightly over 10 years, but Korea has never ranked below fifth among OECD countries in terms of this ratio. Employment of Korean women has mostly been concentrated at restaurants, lodging facilities, cleaning and day care services.

In view of employment quality, the same is true of elderly workers.

According to the Korea Employment Information Service, a public agency affiliated with the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the number of working old people aged 62 or more topped 2.72 million in June last year. Their real monthly wages averaged 1.84 million won ($1,354). Women in this age group earned 1.33 million won, 59 percent of what their male peers did. Both amounts are low incomes.

Of the working old people, 53.9 percent worked less than 40 hours a week. Seventy-five percent worked at small and medium-sized companies, and 32.6 percent at very small businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

Of course, it is important to create new jobs, but the quality of employment should be raised, too.

The youth, among others, should be given more opportunities to apply for stable and decent jobs.

Internships and job training programs engaging both colleges and businesses should be strengthened.

Retirees' job skills and experiences need to be better utilized. Whether to extend statutory retirement age has emerged as a pending issue. Considering financial burden on companies and job opportunities for the young, it looks valid to let companies decide on this issue autonomously.

The economic independence of the young people, women and older workers helps reduce social security costs.

The Lee Jae Myung government should make efforts to increase full-time employment of young people and to raise the quality of employment for those disadvantaged in the labor market.