No. of irregular workers hits record 7.48 mil.

Gov’t blames ILO for unfavorable stats

The number of irregular workers in August jumped to 7.48 million from 6.61 million a year earlier, even as the Moon Jae-in administration continues its efforts to reduce temporary positions to improve job security, Statistics Korea data showed Tuesday.

Both the actual number of irregular workers and the increase were the highest the government has seen in the 16 years since it began compiling the statistics back in 2003.

The number of irregular workers amounted to 36.4 percent of that of salaried workers, the highest proportion ever within the past 12 years.

Amid the unprecedented increase, the number of regular employees dropped to 13 million from 13.4 million, the first time since 2010 that there has been a decrease.

Considering the administration’s efforts to switch irregular workers in the public sector to regular positions, the increase of irregular workers in the private sector is estimated to be much higher.

A vice finance minister and the commissioner of Statistics Korea, however, went all out to defend the government, appearing at a press conference to explain the economic indicator.

They attributed the increase in irregular employees to the International Labor Organization (ILO) changing how it categorizes workers.

“As we adopted the ILO’s new categorization method, we discovered an additional number of irregular workers,” Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom told reporters. “Given that other surveys did not show rapid growth of irregular workers, we can say that the method of calculation was what contributed the most to the latest data.”

Statistics Korea Commissioner Kang Shin-wook said the agency discovered up to 500,000 additional irregular workers, who were not included in previous data.

However, the increase is still unusual, even if taking their claims into account.

If the 500,000 were excluded from previous data, the number of irregular workers would increase by 360,000 — the second-largest since the increase marked 785,000 in 2003 when the first statistics were compiled.

“The government should realize that businesses try to minimize their employment and seek to hire workers temporarily in the current low-growth and low-profit environment,” said Sung Tae-yoon, a professor of economics at Yonsei University.

Meanwhile, irregular workers are facing worsening job conditions, according to the data.

Their average monthly salary was 1.72 million won ($1,477) between June and August, while regular workers were paid 3.16 million won on average during the same period.

The gap was 1.43 million won, up 71,000 won from 2018.