The growth of regular workers in South Korea slowed to the lowest rate in 15 years in 2017, amid ongoing restructuring efforts in the shipbuilding industry, government data showed Monday. (Image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 15 (Korea Bizwire) – The growth of regular workers in South Korea slowed to the lowest rate in 15 years in 2017, amid ongoing restructuring efforts in the shipbuilding industry, government data showed Monday.
The number of regular workers rose 2.8 percent to 13.3 million last year from the previous year, according to the data by Statistics Korea.
The figure is the lowest since 2002, when the number moved up 2.2 percent.
The increase rate has climbed since 2002, reaching 7.4 percent in 2010, and had remained above 3 percent thereafter.
Regular workers include full-timers and workers with a contract lasting more than one year.
The number of self-employed workers working alone without any other employee, meanwhile, surged 1.2 percent to 4.05 million last year from a year earlier.
The increase rate is the highest since 2012, when the rate was 2.0 percent.
The three-year survival rate of self-employed workers dropped to 37 percent in 2015 from 40.4 percent in 2010.
Statistics Korea attributed the rising number of self-employed workers and the slowed growth of regular workers to the restructuring of the shipbuilding industry in 2016.
(Yonhap)
