This file photo shows a woman looking at a job recruitment bulletin board at an employment support center in western Seoul on Sept. 14, 2020. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 21 (Korea Bizwire) — The quality of employment among women and seniors has deteriorated during the pandemic era, South Korea’s central bank said Monday.
The Bank of Korea (BOK) reported Monday that 41.6 percent of female senior workers over 60 years were categorized as ‘more-or-less vulnerable’ as of April this year, while 3.4 percent were categorized as ‘very vulnerable.’
In contrast, only 29.4 percent of male senior workers in the same age group were categorized as ‘more-or-less vulnerable’ and 3.6 percent as ‘very vulnerable.’
Among prime-age workers between 30 and 59 years of age, the percentage of vulnerable female workers surpassed that of their male counterparts, largely attributed to poor conditions of employment among women over 40 years of age affected by career breaks and re-employment.
Sorted by age, the percentage of vulnerable male and female senior workers (33, 45 percent) exceeded that of vulnerable male and female workers between 15 and 29 years of age (24, 24.6 percent).
“While employment quality is recovering, it lags behind actual employment numbers,” the BOK said.
In contrast to the pre-pandemic era in January 2020, the number of workers that lack working hours due to involuntary reasons is still 1 percentage point higher, and the percentage of ‘very vulnerable’ laborers, qualifying for more than three vulnerabilities, is up by 2.5 percentage points.
The pandemic has resulted in reduced working hours for ‘offline services’, expanding the percentage of the most vulnerable jobs.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
