COVID-19 Cold Wave... "Last Year's Employment Situation, Most 'Severe' Since the Financial Crisis" (Update)

Korea Economic Research Institute Analyzes Key Employment Indicators for 2020

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] Due to the global COVID-19 crisis, last year's domestic employment situation was the worst since the 1998 International Monetary Fund (IMF) foreign exchange crisis.

The Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI), under the Federation of Korean Industries, announced on the 16th that an analysis of annual data from the Statistics Korea Economically Active Population Survey showed that key employment indicators in 2020 were the second worst since the 1998 foreign exchange crisis. This comparison was made against major past economic crises such as the oil shock (1984), foreign exchange crisis (1998), credit card crisis (2003), and financial crisis (2009).

According to KERI, the economically active population last year was 28.012 million, a decrease of 174,000 from the previous year. This was the second largest drop after 1998 (a decrease of 354,000). Although the population aged 15 and over increased by 281,000, the economically inactive population rose by 455,000 due to the economic downturn.

The number of employed persons was 26.904 million, a decrease of 218,000, which was also the second worst figure after 1998 (a decrease of 1.276 million). The number of unemployed was 1.108 million, the third highest after 1998 (1.49 million) and 1999 (1.374 million). The unemployment rate was 4.0%, the highest in 19 years since 2001 (4.0%).

The quality of jobs also deteriorated. The number of employed persons working 36 hours or more per week, classified as stable jobs, was 20.112 million, a decrease of 1.203 million from the previous year, the second largest drop after 1998 (a decrease of 1.65 million). Conversely, those working less than 36 hours increased by 554,000 to 5.956 million.

In the self-employed sector, which was hit by social distancing measures, the number of self-employed with employees was 1.372 million, a decrease of 165,000 from the previous year, the second largest drop after 1998 (a decrease of 247,000).

By age group, only those aged 60 and over increased by 375,000, while the rest decreased in the order of youth (15-29 years, -183,000), 30s (-165,000), 40s (-158,000), and 50s (-88,000).

Last year, the economically inactive population was 16.773 million, an increase of 455,000 from the previous year. This was the largest increase in 11 years since 2009 (an increase of 494,000). Among them, the population who were 'just resting' increased by 282,000 to 2.374 million, the highest since statistics began. The number of discouraged job seekers also reached a record high of 605,000 (an increase of 73,000) since statistics began.

Choo Kwang-ho, Director of Economic Policy at KERI, emphasized, "To improve employment, since there are limits to job creation in the public sector, it is necessary to revitalize the private economy through deregulation and improvement of the business environment to create sustainable and quality jobs."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.