Jeonnam Hwasun-gun Achieves Highest Elderly Job Participation Rate... Driving Employment Rate of Senior Population

Published 02 Mar.2022 13:10(KST)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Ji-woon] As a result of actively expanding the senior job projects, Hwasun-gun, Jeollanam-do, has recorded the highest job participation rate among the elderly population in Jeollanam-do’s cities and counties, leading the increase in employment rates for the elderly population.

Since the 7th local government administration, Hwasun-gun established a dedicated department called the Senior Job Team and has steadily expanded senior job projects, including the full implementation of the senior center meal assistant project.

The number of participants in the job projects increased steadily from 2,300 in 2016 to 3,107 in 2018, 3,926 in 2019, 4,674 in 2020, and 4,928 in 2021, while the scale of projects grew from 11 in 2016 to 14?16.

An analysis of the job participation rates of the elderly population aged 65 and over in 22 cities and counties of Jeollanam-do over the past four years showed that Hwasun-gun’s participation rate was the highest every year.

Hwasun-gun’s participation rates were 19% in 2018, 24% in 2019, 28% in 2020, and 29% in 2021, more than double the ‘average participation rate and number of participants’ of the other 21 cities and counties.

In 2021, the average participation rate and number of participants in the 21 cities and counties were 12% and 2,263 people, respectively, while Hwasun-gun recorded 29% and 4,928 people.

The county explained that the overall project scale was large because the ‘Senior Center Meal Assistant Project,’ which had been a pilot project, was fully implemented starting in 2019.

The number of senior center meal assistants increased sharply from 29 in 2018 to between 410 and 550 from 2019 onward, with an average of 459 people working as meal assistants annually over the past three years.

As the number of senior job participants in the public sector expanded, the employment rate and number of employed persons aged 65 and over appear to have maintained an upward trend.

According to the National Statistical Portal of Statistics Korea, the number of employed elderly population (employment rate) in Hwasun-gun was 6,900 (45.6%) in 2017 → 7,500 (49.0%) in 2018 → 8,800 (56.7%) in 2019 → 9,400 (58.7%) in 2020 → 9,600 (58.7%) in 2021. The employment rate in the second half of 2021 rose by 1.5 percentage points compared to the first half (57.2%).

The satisfaction level of senior job project participants is also very high.

According to a satisfaction survey of 4,250 (sample) participants last year, 99.3% were satisfied with the overall project, and 99.8% said they would participate again.

80.5% participated in the job projects to ‘prepare living expenses or pocket money,’ and the biggest changes after participation were cited as ‘economic help (62.3%)’ and ‘health improvement (28.8%).’

It appears to have effects such as alleviating income instability among the elderly, maintaining economic activities, promoting a vibrant old age, activating social participation, and expanding job-linked social services.

This year, the county plans to invest a total of 15.8 billion KRW from national, provincial, and county funds to actively promote 14 projects in 4 fields with 4,937 participants starting in March.

Goo Choong-gon, the mayor of Hwasun-gun, said, “We judged that jobs are the most effective means of senior welfare policy, so we greatly expanded the projects, which seems to have led to increased employment rates and income stability among the elderly population. We will continue to discover and promote senior welfare policies that have a high sense of impact.”