By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter

Female workers and the self-employed are the hardest hit by the troubled economy, statistics show. Women are usually the first to get a pink slip, and the self-employed in the country are feeling as unhappy as the jobless.

According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), the ratio of economically active females recorded 48.8 percent in December, the lowest level since last February. The rate dropped by 1.6 percentage points from November, when it hovered above 50 percent.

The decrease is due to the high ratio of part-timers and contract workers among women, who are the first target when businesses decide to cut their workforce.

According to a survey of 494 small businesses by Career, a job market information portal, 62.3 percent of respondents said they prefer non-regular workers during an economic slump. They cited the ease of restructuring and cutting labor costs as the main reason for preferring non-regular workers.

Waitress jobs that employ a lot of females are also decreasing due to the bad economy.

More women are expected to lose their jobs as job market conditions are expected to worsen in the first half of the year. Job creation decreased last December, the first plunge in five years.

The self-employed is another group hit hard by the economic recession.

Hyundai Research Institute said that the self-employed saw their economic happiness index plunge last year.

The index measures how economically happy people feel based on economic stability, superiority, development, equality, and anxiety. While the figure for average Koreans stood at 33.6 in the latter half of last year, down 1.2 points from the first half, the index for the self-employed averaged 26.2, plunging 6.3 points. The jobless group recorded 22.8, down 3.5 points.

``The self-employed are feeing as economically miserable as the jobless. It means they are hit hard by the economic trouble,'' the think tank explained.

Professional workers, meanwhile, had the index surge 3.3 points to 55.6. Government workers also saw the figure rise 4.2 points to 46.1, reflecting the job stability they enjoy.

chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr