This photo, from Sept. 14, 2020, shows office workers out for lunch in the central Seoul ward of Jongno. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of people who said their motivation to work has weakened since the COVID-19 pandemic increased sharply, a survey showed Monday.
The Woori Finance Research Institute, affiliated with major bank holding firm Woori Financial Group, classified individuals who are in the 10 to 30 percent bracket of the top earners’ list as ‘mass affluent’ and conducted a survey of 4,000 ‘mass affluent’ individuals whose annual pre-tax income ranges from 70-120 million won (US$59,210-101,510).
Among them, the share of those who said their motivation to work had weakened after the pandemic stood at 28.7 percent, higher than 15.5 percent who said otherwise.
Among the respondents, 46.1 percent replied that the primary factor behind their lower motivation to work was a relatively low increase in wages compared to the rise in the prices of assets such as properties and stocks.
Roughly one third cited the faster growth in consumer prices, including daily necessities, than the growth in wages as the main factor behind the increase in the number of such people.
The share of those who said they opt for high risk and high return investments stood at 43.6 percent, up 9.9 percentage points from a year ago, while the share of those who said they prefer safer options declined by 7.8 percentage points year on year to 33.4 percent.
In the meantime, the average asset holdings of the mass affluent segment stood at 913.7 million won, up 149 million won from a year ago.
J. S. Shin (js_shin@koreabizwire.com)
