hankyoreh

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

In 2016, the legal retirement age will be raised to 60, but the average retirement age for South Korean workers is 49 years, recently published statistics show. The time period that workers spend at a single company is also decreasing each year, with the current average being 15 years and 4 months, the report says.

According to the “Economic Activity Population Study: Results of an Auxiliary Study of Young People and the Elderly,” released by Statistics Korea on July 15, elderly people (those between 55 and 64) left the company they had stayed the longest at the age of 49. The retirement age dropped from 50 in 2009 to 49 in 2010 and has remained there until now.

The average time that workers are employed at the job where they work the longest is also getting shorter every year. In 2005, it was 16 years and 10 months; in 2009, 17 years; in 2012, 16 years and 6 months; and in April of this year, it was 15 years and 4 months.

By occupation, skilled workers in farms, forestry, and fisheries spend the most time at a single workplace, 27 years and 4 months. Next in line were managers and experts, with 20 years and 4 months, followed by technicians and machine operators, with 15 years and 8 months.

When asked why they quit the job they had been at for the longest period of time, the largest portion of respondents (34.7%) said that business was bad, operations had stopped, or the company closed temporarily or permanently, while 10.1% answered that they had been urged to resign, retired voluntarily or laid off.

This indicates that nearly half of workers had to leave their job before they reached regular retirement age because of worsening conditions at the company. Only 7.6% of workers retired at the official retirement age, reflecting the fact that the labor market is gradually becoming less stable. 19.6% quit work because of poor health, while 15.7% left to take care of their family.

Since few people receive pensions (including national pension, pension for teachers, pension for soldiers, basic elderly pension, and private pension plans) when they retire, one out of every two elderly people are working, the report said. Among the 47.7% of the elderly who do receive a pension, the most common payment was 100,000 won to 250,000 won (US$97.25-US$243.37) a month, with 39.3% of pensioners being paid. 21.2% of pensioners were getting less than 100,000 won, making it impossible for them to get by on pension alone. For reasons such as this, 53.9% of the elderly are working.

The jobs available to old people who have already retired are of low quality. The most common type of employment was unskilled labor (26.7%), followed by technical and machine operation (21%) and service and sales (20.6%).

More than six out of ten elderly people expect that they will have to keep working in the future. The most typical reason for this, chosen by 54% of respondents, was to support themselves.

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