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View All NewsKorea – Two-fifths of staff at big firms are temporary
Two-fifths of workers at large businesses in Korea are irregular workers, according to a government survey which highlighted the level of job insecurity in the country, reports The Korea Herald.
According to the data on types of employment in 3,233 companies, nearly 39% of 4.6 million Korean workers at large companies were hired on temporary contracts or are outsourced by recruitment firms.
There have been rising concerns about the working conditions of outsourced workers, who are hired by external firms and are then sent to work in factories or on construction sites.
Labour unions have pointed out that temporary workers provide the same amount of work as permanently hired employees, but are paid less, leading to widening income disparity.
Companies, however, believe that a flexible labour market is necessary in Korea‘s export-driven economy, enabling lower production costs and helping to maintain a competitive edge over their foreign competitors.
According to the data, larger-sized companies were more likely to indirectly “hire” workers through outsourcing firms. For firms with more than 1,000 employees 23% of their workers were outsourced, while those with fewer than 1,000 employees had only “hired” 13.4% indirectly.
By industry, the construction sector, especially shipping and steel companies, generated the largest proportion of temporary jobs with 44.6%, followed by the leisure industry with 27.1%, the manufacturing industry with 25%, and retail sector with 22.9%.
Park Sung-sik, a spokesperson for the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, commented: “When conglomerates hire workers through human resources agencies or their suppliers, it gets easier for them to dodge responsibility to protect them at work. The level of ‘indirect employment’ in the construction industry is associated with the high number of industrial accidents.”
Since last year, the Ministry of Employment and Labour made it mandatory for companies with more than 300 staff members to release the information on the number of their employees in both temporary and permanent positions.
The move comes as part of efforts to encourage Korean companies to improve their hiring structure through peer assessment, the government said.
The Korea Employers Federation, however, blasted the scheme for “fixing the image that temporary jobs are low-quality and should be reduced in number”.