59% of Non-Regular Workers "Cannot Use Vaccine Leave"... 33% Experienced Job Loss Due to COVID-19

Citizens wearing thick clothes are hurrying to work on Sejong-daero in Seoul. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] A survey has revealed that the gap in working conditions between regular and non-regular workers has widened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Workplace Bullying 119, which conducted a survey of 1,000 office workers from the 3rd to the 10th, the proportion of non-regular workers who experienced job loss or income reduction after COVID-19 was higher than that of regular workers, the organization announced on the 26th. According to the survey, 33.3% of non-regular workers experienced job loss after COVID-19. This is 4.2 times higher than the 8.0% of regular workers who experienced job loss during the same period.

The proportion of non-regular workers who experienced income reduction was also 46.5%, which is 2.7 times higher than the 17.3% of regular workers. When broken down by income level, only 10.5% of high-income workers earning more than 5 million KRW per month experienced income reduction, whereas 49.2% of low-income workers earning less than 1.5 million KRW per month saw their income decrease.

The probability of not being able to take COVID-19 vaccine leave was also higher among non-regular workers. Among non-regular workers, 59.1% were unable to use paid vaccine leave, which is more than 10 percentage points higher compared to 48.0% of regular workers.

Workplace Bullying 119 emphasized, "Because the government's vaccine leave policy is only a recommendation, it has caused discrimination between regular and non-regular workers," and added, "Vaccine leave should be mandatory rather than optional, and the government should cover the costs."

This survey was conducted by the public opinion research firm Embrain Public. The confidence level is 95%, with a sampling error of ±3.1 percentage points.

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