The larger conglomerates, the more temporary workers

A Samsung flag flutters in the wind in front of the company\'s headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Yonhap

Last year, the percentage of temporary workers at large companies reached the highest level since 2014, when the employment type disclosure system was implemented. The system was introduced to encourage large companies to voluntarily improve their employment structure, but it has failed to achieve its purpose, said Kim Yoo-sun, chairman of the Korea Labour & Society Institute, in a report titled "The Scale of Temporary Workers at Large Companies," which analyzed the results of employment type disclosure system in 2023.

Employers with 300 or more full-time workers have been required to disclose not only the number of directly employed workers but also that of non-affiliated, or indirectly employed, workers, such as dispatched workers, as of March 31 of each year since the employment type disclosure system was implemented in 2014. The report categorizes fixed-term and short-term workers directly employed by large companies as well as indirectly employed workers as non-regular workers.

According to the report, the number of directly employed temporary workers, including fixed-term workers, increased from 750,000 in 2014 to 1.03 million in 2018, and then decreased to 0.99 million in 2019. The number remained at a similar level of 1.01 million to 1.02 million from 2020 to 2021 before increasing significantly to 1.15 million in 2022 and 1.25 million in 2023. The number of indirectly employed temporary workers increased from 870,000 in 2014 to 930,000 in 2016, fluctuated between 860,000 and 910,000 from 2017 to 2021, and increased to 940,000 in 2022 and 1.01 million in 2023.

Kim said, "The decrease in the proportion of non-regular workers from 2018 to 2019 was largely due to the Moon Jae-in administration's measures against non-regular workers, and the decrease from 2020 to 2021 was due to the coronavirus crisis. The increase from 2022 to 2023 can be interpreted as a result of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s policy of favoring the business community."

The larger the size of a company, the higher the proportion of temporary workers. The proportion for companies with 300 to 500 employees was 28.6 percent, compared to 43.7 percent for companies with 10,000 or more employees. The larger the size of a company, the higher the proportion of indirect employment. The proportion for companies with 300 to 500 employees was 25.2 percent for direct employment and 3.4 percent for indirect employment, compared to 11.7 percent for direct employment and 32.0 percent for indirect employment for companies with 10,000 or more employees. The 82 large business groups designated by the Fair Trade Commission also employed 9.9 percent of their workers directly and 30.5 percent indirectly, while non-chaebol companies employed 31.6 percent of their workers directly and 9.1 percent indirectly. Kim pointed out, “"The chaebol-affiliated conglomerates rely a lot on indirect employment, including in-house subcontracting, and most of those jobs are impermanent and illegal dispatch.”

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.