Part-time labor market gets harsher on slow economy

By Chung Joo-won
The growth of Korean part-timers’ monthly income in the second quarter slowed to a three-year low, an online job-matching portal revealed Monday.
Alba Paradise chief executive Choi In-nyeong said, “In general, the growth of part-timers’ income and average hourly pay had been far faster than the minimum wage.”
“But this year, their monthly and hourly wages grew slower, most likely because the slow economy cut down on the demand in the part-time labor market,” he said.
According to a survey conducted by Alba Paradise on 5,077 part-timers 15 years of age or older, the average monthly income of part-time workers in the April-June period stood at 630,747 won ($547), up 2.9 percent from a year earlier. The speed of growth was slashed to less than one-third of last year’s 9.3 percent.
During the same period, part-timers’ average hourly income stood at 6,808 won, up 3.9 percent from a year ago. The growth rate isn’t much over half the raise in legal minimum wage of the same period. This year, the legal minimum wage increased 7.1 percent to 5,580 won from last year’s 5,210 won. Next year, the bottom line will be set at 6,630 won, up 8.1 percent.
The billable work hours, too, have shortened consistently since 2013.
The part-time workers’ average weekly work hours, 21.7 hours in April-June of 2013, dropped to 21.5 hours in 2014 and 21.3 hours in 2015 during the same period.
(joowonc@heraldcorp.com)