The number of workers with irregular job status in South Korea has exceeded 6.4 million, with the income gap between them and regular employees widening, government data showed Thursday.

There were a total of 19.62 million paid workers in the country as of August, up 1.6 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea.

The number of irregular workers rose 2.8 percent on-year to 6.44 million, while that of regular ones climbed 1.1 percent to 13.18 million.

The ratio of irregular workers increased by 0.3 percentage point to 32.8 percent.

Women accounted for 54.9 percent of irregular workers, up 0.9 percentage point from the same month in 2015.

The average wage of irregular workers came to 1.49 million won ($1,300) between June and August, about half of the 2.79 million won for their colleagues with more job security.

There was a 10.5 percent disparity between some regular and irregular workers in their monthly wages although they have the same job, sex, age and length of employment. It marks a 0.3 percentage point rise from a year earlier.

Inequality in the level of welfare is even wider. Only 40.9 percent and 24.4 percent of irregular workers receive severance pay and overtime pay, respectively, far lower than 85.5 percent and 58.4 percent among regular workers. (Yonhap)