Hourly Wage Gap Hits 10,000 Won, Irregular Worker Discrimination Deepens

The wage gap between regular and irregular workers widened to 10,000 won per hour last year, the largest disparity in 11 years. According to the 'Survey on Labor Conditions by Employment Type' released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the average hourly wage for all workers last year rose 2.7% to 25,839 won. Regular workers saw their hourly wages increase by 3.2% to 28,599 won, while irregular workers' wages grew by only 1.3% to 18,635 won, expanding the gap to 10,000 won. The ratio of irregular worker wages to regular worker wages continued its downward trend. After peaking at 72.9% from 55.5% when statistics first began in 2008, the ratio dropped to 65.2% last year. This means irregular workers earned only 652,000 won for every 1 million won earned by regular workers.

Factors contributing to this widening gap include a significant increase in irregular employment among the elderly population and in the health and social welfare sector. As of August last year, the number of irregular workers aged 60 and over surpassed 3 million for the first time, reaching 3,044,000. In terms of industry, the health and social welfare sector employed 1,756,000 irregular workers, an increase of 210,000 from the previous year. Conversely, irregular employment decreased in sectors such as accommodation and food services, construction, and wholesale and retail trade. The rise in very short-term workers, those working less than 18 hours per week, also played a role in dragging down the overall average wage for irregular workers. Last year, the number of workers employed for 1 to 17 hours per week was 1,742,000, the highest figure since related statistics began. These very short-term workers were primarily concentrated in lower-wage industries like health and social welfare.

The government is pursuing the introduction of 'fairness allowances' to mitigate the wage gap for irregular workers. This system, designed to provide compensation proportional to employment instability for fixed-term workers with less than one year of tenure, is expected to show some improvement in irregular worker wage indicators.

The wage gap between large corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) narrowed slightly. Last year, hourly wages for workers in SMEs with fewer than 300 employees stood at 57.3% of those in large corporations with 300 or more employees, an improvement of 1.1 percentage points from 56.2% the previous year. In February, the average monthly total wage per employee reached 4,849,000 won, a 17.8% increase year-on-year, driven by performance-based bonuses at large companies. Wages for permanent employees rose 19.0% to 5,183,000 won, while wages for temporary and daily workers decreased by 1.1% to 1,717,000 won, due to an increased proportion of low-wage jobs.