Cash-strapped wage earners give up vacations: survey
By Ko Dong-hwan
gettyimagesbank
A majority of wage earners in Korea cannot afford to take a vacation this summer because of their economic conditions, according to the results of a survey released Sunday.
Among the country's salary earners who have given up on taking a vacation this year or delayed making plans, 62 percent said they did so because they “don't currently have enough cash in hand.”
The survey was conducted by
, a civic group advocating for the rights of domestic workers, over a week starting on June 9. “Gabjil,” or “gapjil” as it's more commonly spelled, is Korean for a set of actions taken by workplace superiors or customers in service sectors against others who deem the actions unfair and abusive.
The survey, which interviewed 1,000 salary earners aged 19 and older across the country, has found that less than 44 percent have made vacation plans for this summer.
Meanwhile, over 36 percent said they had not yet decided whether to take a vacation this summer, while 20 percent said it was not an option.
There was a correlation between wage levels and the likelihood of vacation, according to the poll. For example, more respondents from lower-paying and smaller-scale workplaces said that taking a vacation wasn't an immediate plan while those from bigger companies that paid higher wages showed a higher rate of vacation-goers.
Other reasons for not having made vacation plans this year included “taking a vacation would delay workload to an excessive amount,” “not enough vacation days” and being “afraid that taking a vacation would get on superiors' nerves.”