Now playing: Usherless theaters as workers vanish

Lotte Cinema located in Mapo District, western Seoul, operates without a ticket clerk. [JEONG JIN-HO]

At some cinemas in Korea, movie theaters are playing the latest hits, but ushers are nowhere to be found.

"There was no one to check my ticket when I went into the theater and took a seat," said a customer who visited a theater in Songpa District, southern Seoul.

Cinemas, restaurants, hotels and cafes are having a hard time hiring workers as the number of customers surged after business curfews were lifted. Services requiring face-to-face interaction are having a particularly tough time.

All Lotte Cinema branches and few Megabox and CGV branches currently operate without cinema ticket clerks.

Major cinema chains are staffed at 70 to 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels, although companies try to recruit people through job posts online.

"It's not that companies are not hiring workers. They are offering positions, but there aren't enough applicants like before," said a source in the business.

The reasons for the labor shortage are complicated. One possible factor is that major layoffs during the pandemic drove part-time workers out of the job market for good.

"From last year to early this year, the number of part-time workers was only half of the number in 2019," said a spokesperson for CGV. "We started recruiting again a week before the social distancing measures were lifted."

The increase in the number of online jobs during the pandemic influenced the current labor shortage. Gig jobs that do not require workers to clock into an office or work full-time are now more favored by part-time job applicants. The number of delivery drivers, a typical gig job in Korea, rose 9.7 percent on year to 428,000 in the second half of 2021.

The supply of labor in the service industry has been shrinking as non-face-to-face jobs within the sector have become more popular and the number of so-called digital nomads has increased. Digital nomads refer to people working remotely who travel to different locations on a regular basis.

The decline in the youth population is another factor.

According to Statistics Korea, Korea had 8.59 million people 15 to 29 as of May, which is lower than the 8.79 million in May 2021. This particular age group, which includes university students and new graduates, is considered to be the most active group in the service industry.

The size of this age group has been shrinking steadily and is now dropping at a faster pace. Although the figure fell 2.3 percent on year in May 2022, it only dropped 1.5 percent on year in May 2021.

Classes starting again at universities is another reason. As face-to-face classes and college festivals have resumed for the first time in about three years, students in their freshmen to junior years are opting for campus life over work.

"Before the pandemic, there were many sophomore and junior students that applied for a part-time job, but I don't think they are applying anymore since they want to spend more time at school," said a hotel industry insider.

The tendency among the young to avoid working in temporary jobs that do not seem so relevant to their careers may be another contributing factor to the worsening labor shortage.

"The so-called MZ generation tends to take jobs that are helpful for their future," said Yoon Dong-yeol, a business professor at Konkuk University.

Some experts also say working in offline services may be uncomfortable for some younger people as they are now very used to non-face-to-face activities due to the pandemic.

To resolve the problem, experts point out that services should recruit older people, as it is often done in the United States and Europe.

"We need to consider hiring middle-aged people and the elderly to reduce the labor shortage, and draw up solutions that are appealing for the young generation," said Yoon. "In the case of the United States, workers who start their career as part-time workers can even become managers, but in Korea, this is not the case."

"There should be a major reform for contract workers, in particular, we need to suggest long-term vision since the younger people desire to grow and learn at work."

BY JEONG JIN-HO [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]