Quality jobs replaced by low-paying ones

College students sit in on a lesson on how to give a good job interview.

Job security and good salaries harder to come by

So-called ’quality’ jobs offering good compensation and job security are disappearing at the nation’s major corporations, state-owned companies, and financial institutions, whereas low-paid employment has steadily increased.

Employees at the nation’s top 30 business groups and financial institutions numbered 1,305,000 in 2004, a drop of 274,000 from 1,579,000 in 1997, according to a report released by the Korea Development Institute (KDI) August 20, after analyzing data from employmers’ insurance programs. These sought-after jobs accounted for 5.8 percent of national employment, compared to 7.4 percent in 1997.

Considering that the number of workers during the same period rose by 1.34 million people, it is getting much more difficult to get high-paying, secure jobs.

The nation’s top 30 businesses employed 879,000 workers in 1997, but those figures shrank to 695,000 employed in 2000 and 672,000 in 2004. There were 222,000 employees at state-owned companies in 2004, compared to 253,000 in 1997. Financial institutions decreased their workforce to 411,000 from 447,000 during the same period.

"Korea’s large businesses employ only one third of [the portion of the workforce as] their counterparts in some advanced countries. The number of employees at state-owned corporations stays at one third or one fourth of the figure in advanced nations," the KDI’s report said.

While quality jobs have not been created for the past few years, low-paying jobs are on the rise, with one out of four Korean workers, or 26.8 percent of the national workforce, earning less than two-thirds of the median wage. This figure is lower than the United States’ 25 percent, the KDI noted.

A KDI researcher suggested that the "creation of high-quality jobs requires cooperation of the public and civil sectors to restructure the service industry, foster innovative small and medium-sized companies, and reform the labor environment."