[Editorial] A statistical illusion about employment

Statistics Korea data showing employment growing over 810,000 for 2022 is hard to believe. Based on the data, Korea’s job market would have been the best in 22 years. The statistical office attributed the big jump to the full lifting of Covid-19 restrictions. A struggling family with a bread-winner and an adult child would not agree to the statistics. This is because job additions largely came from temporary and hourly hires.

People working one to 14 hours a week totaled 1.58 million last year, accounting for 5.6 percent of the employed, the largest on record. People working less than 15 hours a week don’t get benefits like overtime or severance pay or health insurance. Employers distributed a task to several individuals to save labor cost, which bumped up the hiring count in job data. Hourly-based employment has been rising sharply, up 44 percent from 2018 when the total exceeded 1 million for the first time.

The number of people working for fewer than 36 hours a week rose 19.7 percent, or 1.3 million, last year from the previous year. On the flip side, the number of people working for more than 36 hours, which is considered a full time job, fell by 500,000. The data therefore hid the reality of the job market.

What’s ahead is more worrisome, as this year’s outlook is even worse. The Ministry of Economy and Finance projects job additions would be no more 100,000 this year, which is just one eighth of last year’s growth, even if you include the number of short-term and contract hires. That means jobs with security will be much scarcer down the road.

Slowdowns in industry have been faster than expected. In the first 10 days of January, exports — which have been sluggish since October — showed a weaker performance than expected. The World Bank projects that global economic growth will be nor more than 1.7 percent. Companies have stopped hiring since the latter half of last year. Employment of people between the ages of 15 and 29 has been declining since November. The government does not have a magic wand to reverse the trend. It cannot resort to the last government’s trick of creating temporary jobs in the public sector.

Quality jobs can only come from companies. The government must be more aggressive in removing regulations so that the private sector can widen job opportunities for more people. The government must turn more proactive to create jobs before it is too late.