20% of Part-Time Workers "Can't Even Earn This Year's Minimum Wage"... Majority Complain About High Inflation Burden

Survey Results from Alba Cheonguk

A survey revealed that the majority of part-time workers do not feel the impact of wage increases. This is due to the steep rise in living costs alongside the increase in the minimum wage. Still, 20% of part-time workers receive wages below this year's statutory minimum hourly wage. The part-time job portal 'AlbaCheonguk,' specializing in recruitment and job seeking, conducted a survey on 'wage levels' with 1,580 current part-time workers, resulting in these findings.

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First, regarding satisfaction with the current hourly wage, dissatisfaction responses exceeded half, including ▲So-so (36.3%) ▲Somewhat dissatisfied (13.9%) ▲Very dissatisfied (4.1%). This means only about 2 out of 5 part-time workers are satisfied with their current hourly wage.

The response rate for feeling a wage increase this year was also very low at 32.8%. The statutory minimum wage this year is 9,860 KRW per hour, a 2.5% increase from the previous year, but 7 out of 10 part-time workers did not feel a real wage increase.

The biggest reason was 'price inflation (50.0%, multiple responses),' meaning that prices rose more sharply than wages, resulting in a real wage reduction.

Part-time Heaven Survey Results [Image source=Part-time Heaven]

Other reasons included ▲The wage increase rate was low (33.2%) ▲Actual wage increases were not applied (19.1%) ▲Due to reduced working hours, real wages remained the same or decreased (10.7%).

According to AlbaCheonguk's survey of hourly wages received by part-time workers as of January this year, 1 in 5 (21.6%) earn less than the statutory minimum hourly wage of 9,860 KRW.

Additionally, nearly half (46.9%) of these workers reported earning the same as last year's statutory minimum wage of 9,620 KRW. AlbaCheonguk analyzed this as "wage increases in line with legal standards have not yet been properly implemented."

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