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Eighty-six percent of employees at Incheon International Airport are irregular workers, recent data show.

Considered one of the country’s top public enterprises, the airport has been selected the world’s best for ten years running, with staff earning an average of 85,760,000 won (US$72,600) a year. But the figures reveal much of the toil of its irregular workers ending up in the pockets of managers and permanent staff.

According to data released on Sept. 14 by lawmakers Kang Dong-won, Kim Sang-hee, and Kim Kyung-hyub, members of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Committee, Incheon Airport’s 1,041 full-time workers in 2014 accounted for just 14.1% of its staff, while 6,318 workers with outside companies - effectively temporary workers - made up 85.9%, or over six times as many.

It is the second highest rate of irregular staff at a public enterprise after the Korea Racing Authority, where irregular workers account for 90.9% of staff.

A difference for Incheon Airport is that workers from outside companies are tasked with such key duties as airport management, security, and safety. The duty with the most irregular personnel was airport facility security at 1,132, followed by security screening (966), environmental beautification (762), baggage facility management (474), and fire rescue (208).

Duties entrusted to outside companies included 50 out of 282 total airport operation and management support areas. Irregular workers were not hired for airport construction, marketing, or investment soliciting.

While employing irregular workers for many of its duties, the airport has also offered some of the top treatment of any public enterprise for its executives and full-time staff. Average yearly pay stood at 85,760,000 won in 2013, ranking it fourth or fifth among South Korean public enterprises. The average pay for a South Korean public enterprise in 2013 was 62,590,000 won (US$53,000).

Incheon Airport’s pay also averaged 11 million won (US$9,300) higher than at the Korea Airports Corporation, which has existed longest and does similar work. Other perks included 7.07 million won (US$6,000) in benefits and 384,000 won (US$325) for “souvenir costs.”

Meanwhile, irregular workers averaged between 33 million and 36 million won (US$28,000-30,500) in pay, or roughly 38-42% what their permanent counterparts made.

The data also showed the airport exceeding the administration’s own guidelines year after year on total personnel cost increases at public enterprises by paying such a high rate to its full-time workers. Indeed, the total excess from the stipulated level amounted to 17 billion won (US$14.4 million) over the seven years between 2007 and 2013.

“The outsourcing rate for Incheon Airport is excessively high, and the disparity between full-time and irregular workers is indescribable. This needs to be remedied,” said Kim Sang-hee during a parliamentary audit held on Sept. 14 at the Incheon International Airport Corporation.

In response, CEO Park Wan-soo said the airport “developed plans for directly hiring 398 of the irregular workers or transferring them to an affiliated,” but the administration “would not agree to it.”

Law maker Kim Kyung-hyub quoted the Ministry of Finance and Strategy as saying it would be “reasonable to maintain the current focus on outsourcing because the duties in questions have traditionally been performed by private companies.”

The 398 workers the corporation claims to have planned to hire directly or employ full-time at an affiliate amount to just 6.3% of all irregular workers at the airport.

By Kim Kyu-won, staff reporter

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