Most Koreans feel insecure about job status

The majority of Koreans are insecure about their current employment status, according to a biennial poll from the government’s statistical office released on Thursday.

The 2015 society sector survey on about 39,000 Koreans conducted by Statistics Korea showed 61 percent of the employed respondents said they “feel insecure about their current job status.” The office said it sampled a cross section of Korean households in 27 residential districts nationwide for research on segments such as labor, income, culture, leisure and welfare.

The percentage was higher by more than 1 percentage point, than 59.8 percent, posted in the 2013 survey.

By age, respondents in their 30s recorded the highest at 65.5 percent who said they have anxiety over job security, followed by those in their 40s with 63.5 percent, those in their 20s with 62.5 percent and those in their 50s with 59.4 percent.

Male respondents outnumbered females ― 62.3 percent of men and 59.2 percent of women said they are insecure.

Those in the service and sales sector were the most insecure, while the agricultural and fisheries sector saw lower concerns.

Concerning their wages, only 11.4 percent of the surveyed responded that they were satisfied with the income level, down from 12.1 percent in 2013, said the statistical office.

More females were estimated to be discontent with their income as just 11.8 percent of men and 10.9 percent of the women expressed satisfaction.

By age, only 8 percent of the respondents in their 60s said they were content with their income levels.

A total of 53 percent of the surveyed also said they belonged to the middle-income bracket, while 44.6 percent said they were low-income earners.

Regarding their cultural and leisure activities, the overall satisfaction from leisure stood at 26.0 percent, down 1.1 percentage points from two years ago.

Economic burden was their biggest factor, which undermines satisfaction from having leisure time. The economic burden took up the largest portion of 58.2 percent of all hindrances against satisfaction from leisure, followed by the lack of free time, at 20.2 percent.

The economic burden was more acute for people with monthly income of less than 5 million won ($4,350). For those with monthly income of 6 million or higher, lack of free time was the biggest setback for the high-income brackets.

Those, whose monthly income is less than 1 million won, were discouraged the most from leisure activities due to poor health conditions.

By types of leisure activities, the largest 69.9 percent of respondents chose to watch television in their leisure time, followed by physical relaxation, 50.8 percent, and playing computer games and Internet surfing at 19 percent.

Among the 20s and older age groups, the time spent on television increased proportionately to the age. Hobbies and learning, on the other hand, turned out to be inversely proportional to age groups.

The ratio of respondents who went out for performances, exhibition or sports matches at least once over the past 12 months stood at 66.8 percent, up 3.4 percentage points from two years ago. Females spent more time for these cultural activities compared to men, with the exception of sports matches.

The biennial report also revealed that about 72.5 percent of the respondents read or watched news. Of them, 43.1 percent read actual newspapers and 86.0 percent online. The proportion of online news readers began surpassing that of hard-copy readers in the 2011 poll.

As for reading books, about 56.2 percent of the respondents read at least one book a year, down 6.2 percentage points from 2013. The average number of books read were 16.5 per person.

The reading population and the number of books read decreased in proportion to the age.

By Kim Yon-se and Chung Joo-won
(kys@heraldcorp.com) (joowonc@heraldcorp.com )