Almost half of call center workers have thought about taking their own lives due to poor labor conditions and extreme emotional labor, a state human rights watchdog survey showed.

In the survey of 1,996 call center people conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea from August to October, 48 percent said they thought of killing themselves and 30 percent said they had the thought in the past year.

As reasons for having suicidal thoughts, economic difficulty was cited the most at 55.6 percent, followed by mental stress at 53.4 percent.

The survey showed poor working conditions of call centers were not improved even after South Korea implemented a law aimed at protecting call center workers’ health in 2018. (Yonhap)