The decline in the number of employed workers in January of this year was 982,000, the largest since the financial crisis, at the level of’employment disaster’. With the prolonged quarantine measures following the re-proliferation of Corona 19, the job market was hit directly by the service industry. In particular, with the decrease in the number of employed, a more serious problem is that the quality of employment is deteriorating due to the increasing number of “alba”-level jobs and decreasing stable jobs. Although the government is creating jobs by investing finances, even this has resulted in mass production of jobs for the elderly.
According to the’January 2020 Employment Trends’ released by the National Statistical Office on the 10th, of the 982,000 employees who had declined last month, lodging and restaurants (-367,000 people), wholesale and retail businesses (-218,000 people), and other service industries (- The number of employed decreased by 898,000 in the service industry alone, including 103,000 people). In addition, by employment type, the number of temporary workers and daily workers decreased by 795,000, indicating that the corona shock was mainly concentrated in the underprivileged.
By hours of employment, the number of employees working less than 36 hours a week last month was 5377,000, an increase of 262,000 (5.1%) from the same month last year. On the other hand, the number of employed 36 hours or more per week in January was 19539,000, a decrease of 1589,000 (7.5%) from the same period last year.
This is interpreted to mean that the overall quality of domestic jobs has deteriorated, meaning that while there are more time to work, the number of jobs that work less and receive less have increased, while the number of high-quality jobs that can work stably has decreased. 36 hours is a standard for classifying full-time and part-time workers. The average working hours has been steadily decreasing along with the reduction of working hours, but this trend has been intensified since March last year when the corona crisis began in earnest.
The decrease in the number of employed, centered on the service industry, naturally led to a decrease in the number of self-employed employees. This is because self-employed people, whose incomes have plummeted, have no choice but to reduce fixed costs by sending out employees to survive until the quarantine measures are lifted. Last month, among non-wage workers, the number of self-employed with employees decreased by 158,000 compared to the same month last year. On the other hand, the number of self-employed without employees increased by 32,000. It is said that restaurants, lodging establishments, and gyms have drastically reduced their employees due to business disruptions and shortened business hours, or more businesses are operating alone.
The government has invested enormous finances to maintain employment and is directly heating up the job market, but is facing criticism that it is merely increasing the number of employed by increasing the number of employed by only the elderly. In fact, according to the results of the direct job business in January, the government announced that last month, 449,000 out of the 585,000 total employees were hired as senior jobs. The government is in a position to actively respond to Corona 19 by hiring 830,000 out of 1042,000 direct jobs in the first quarter of this year, but most of these jobs are likely to be allocated as senior jobs.
It is also a concern that the employment shock of the youth has intensified. The number of employed 15-29-year-olds fell 314,000 from the previous month to 3642,000 last month due to the decline in new recruitment by companies and the slowdown in industries with a high proportion of young people. The youth unemployment rate was 9.5%, up 1.8 percentage points from the same month last year. In such a situation of the worst employment shock in history, the government’s demand for disaster subsidies for all citizens is expected to increase.
Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki and Minister of Strategy and Finance said in a remark at the Central Emergency Response Headquarters meeting on the same day, “According to the acceleration of the execution of the third damage support measures and a close examination of the effects of the support so far,” “I have.”
At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, “We expect to see a little improvement with employment in January.”
Kim Yong-beom, the first vice minister of the Ministry of Equipment, said, “I agree with the necessity of organizing the 4th disaster support supplementary administration, and after the Lunar New Year holidays, the party administrations will organize their positions and start discussions in earnest.”
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