ED Self-employed troubled

Last year, the Korean economy grew 3 percent, a record high in three years.

As the government acknowledged, the “content” of the growth was far from sound, however. Most industries _ except for semiconductors and a few other booming sectors _ remained in the doldrums.

None were more so than dining and drinking businesses, run by small-scale owner-operators. According to Statistics Korea Wednesday, output by restaurants and pubs in the January-November period was down 3.1 percent from a year earlier

The scope of the contraction was the largest since the statistics office started to compile data in 2000, even bigger than the 2.4-percent drop in 2009 following the global financial crisis. This is another reminder of the ever-widening gap between large manufacturing exporters and small to midsized services businesses relying on domestic demand.

Government statisticians attribute the deep slump of the dining-drinking businesses to what they call the “triple distress” _ sluggish private consumption, a toughened anticorruption law that bans illegal solicitation and entertainment, and the new eat-alone, drink-alone trends resulting from the increase of single households.

The setback in Korea’s notorious “eat, drink and be merry” culture could be a silver lining in the cloud. The reason it cannot be a comfort is the dire situation gripping the nearly 650,000 bars and eateries mostly run by the self-employed who were kicked out by their employers long before their retirement age amid the prolonged slump.

In a country where one in four employed people are small-sized “trades-people,” their worsening bottom lines mean President Moon Jae-in’s economic slogan of income-led growth and enhanced quality of life could end up as such _ mere words.

Various support for the self-employed may be necessary. A more fundamental solution, however, is to regain economic vigor through innovative growth so that employers cannot sack their workers in the first place.