For more than two years, the Park Geun-hye administration has repeatedly pledged to carry out full-fledged efforts to create as many jobs as possible by 2017 amid the spiraling youth jobless rate.
But the intermediate result is frustrating young jobseekers as some statistical data indicate the government has been solely obsessed with the numerical figure, seemingly paying less attention to the quality of the new jobs.
The South Korean wage gap between regular and nonregular workers is quite high compared to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average.
Nonregular job wages in Korea are less than 60 percent of the level for regular jobs, according to a report from the OECD. The gap is critical, especially when compared to Germany, which saw its respective ratio mark over 80 percent.
The ratios reached 79 percent for Belgium, 78 percent for Demark, 74 percent for the United Kingdom, 67 percent for Greece and 65 percent for Portugal.
According to the state-run agency Statistics Korea, the monthly salary gap between the two categories widened to 1.24 million won ($1,030) as of August 2015, compared to 1.15 million won a year before. The salary disparity was 990,000 won in 2009.
The wide wage disparity in Korea has continued to push the “quality of employment” issue, which includes weakness in job security. The factor has been further aggravated as more businesses actively increase the proportion of temporary jobs for cheaper labor costs.
A report from the Korea Labor Institute showed the nation saw “quality-based employment” further deteriorate last year. More than 6 in 10 workers aged 15-29 hired between January and August 2015 were holding nonregular jobs.
The percentage of nonregular employees among total young workers, aged under 30, has posted a noteworthy rise over the past few years — from 54.1 percent in 2007 to 55 percent in 2011, 60.2 percent in 2013 and 64 percent in August 2015.
In July 2015, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Labor unveiled their project to create more than 200,000 jobs for those aged between 15 and 34 by 2017 in collaboration with six major business lobbies.
Their vision came following news that the number of jobless people in their 20s reached an all-time high of 410,000 in June 2015.
Policymakers’ drive for active job creation is praiseworthy. However, a profound review is also necessary to resolve the growing denunciation over the poor pay for contract employees.
Referring to labor-related experts’ study, the government and the corporate sector should try to introduce successful conditions of developed countries, like “flexible” working hours, where businesses put more focus on hours of duty in office than regular or nonregular status.
