16 Million Koreans Economically Inactive
By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
The economically inactive population has surpassed 16 million here, the highest figure ever, and although the country's unemployment situation is less serious than in other developed countries, the job market is in a worse condition when including these people.
According to the National Statistical Office (NSO), the number of economically inactive people aged 15 years or older totaled 16.23 million in February, or 40.7 percent of the total population in this age bracket, the highest since the statistical office started compiling related data.
The economically inactive population includes those who have decided not to search for jobs, including females doing housework after being laid off, those preparing for licenses or attending training centers for future jobs, and those who have no will to work. Since they're not searching for work, they are neither included in the unemployment statistics nor categorized as employed.
Among them, those dedicated to childcare stood at 1.72 million; not working through choice, 5.79 million; and 1.57 million said they didn't work due to old age.
Those preparing for future jobs totaled 568,000, those who gave up looking stood at 169,000, and those just resting from work for no specific reason recorded 1.75 million. These people, nearing 2.5 million, are not included in the figure, though they are little different from jobless people.
Economists point out that the country's unemployment rate could be considered much higher taking into account the huge economically inactive population.
The country marked a 3.3 percent unemployment rate in January, which is the lowest among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, except for the Netherlands with 2.8 percent.
The OECD average was 6.9 percent, while Spain marked the highest jobless rate of 14.8 percent, and the United States, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, and Iceland marked over 5 percent. The rate was 4.1 percent in Japan.
``Koreans fear losing face, so they are reluctant to define themselves as unemployed, and government support for the unemployed is not as good as in other developed countries,'' a Seoul economist said.