International recruiter highlights Korea's labor issues

By John Redmond

International agency Robert Walters, a leading bilingual specialist professional recruitment consultancy, released the results of its Korean Employee Insights Survey 2017 last Friday.

The company found in its survey of 755 professionals in Korea that Korean workers view youth unemployment and working the longest hours in the OECD as critical labor-related social issues that need rapid improvement.

“Regarding long working hours, 21 percent of the respondents said that it’s a problem which needs to be fixed quickly, regardless of whether they work for a domestic or an international firm,” the company said in a statement.

“The respondents replied that the government should take measures to improve working conditions such as monitoring actual working hours on the job.”

Twenty-one percent picked youth employment as the most important labor market concerns, followed by lack of quality jobs with 19 percent and polarization between large and small firms with 15 percent.

And 21 percent ranked reforming chaebol and fostering the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises at the top as the most needed labor policy.

By gender, the survey revealed that male respondents were more supportive of reforming chaebol and fostering SME competitiveness.

They think that youth unemployment could be improved if SME competitiveness were increased and job opportunities would grow if SME innovation were encouraged and monopolistic chaebol practices were reformed.

They suggested that promoting competitive SMEs is more likely to result in reducing youth unemployment than expanding employment in the public sector.

On the other hand, more women cited a family-friendly work environment (26 percent of female respondents) as more important than support programs for working mothers (18 percent of female respondents).

The result indicated that female workers wanted labor policies to be as practical as possible, allowing for flexible work hours and working at home, aside from public policies such as maternity leave.

Robert Walters was established in 1985 in central London by founder and current CEO Robert Walters. It has offices in 28 countries and employs over 3,300 people. Robert Walters Korean was established in 2010 in Seoul.