By Kim Se-jeong
The promotion of irregular workers to regular ones can be a critical element for a country to boost economic growth, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria said Thursday.
“Non-regular workers don’t have the same level of wages, social protection or opportunity,” Gurria said during a meeting with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon on the sidelines of the Global Mayors Forum held in the capital.
Irregular employment status “affects productivity very seriously,” he said, calling this “dualism” of regular and irregular workers “bad for ethical, moral and political reasons because people are angry and feel insecure.”
He said stronger job security will be the basis for higher productivity.
“If you have a workforce that believes they are strongly associated with the success of the company, they will be more loyal to the company,” he said. “They will be more productive and they will work harder.”
At the same time, if they are irregular workers they can be fired at any time he said.
“And what happens is they will not invest their own time for training, and the company will not be investing in the training of these employees. Productivity tends to fall. No loyalty. No continuity.”
Under 10 years of conservative governments in Korea, the economic mantra seemed to be: Let’s achieve economic growth first then share the wealth.
However, the liberal Moon Jae-in government has stressed the importance of boosting irregular workers’ job status and raising their wages over a macro-level pursuit of economic growth.
Gurria sided with the Moon government, which is currently pushing to increase the number of regular workers.
Incheon International Airport Corp. is an example. President Moon visited the company and the process of changing employment status for irregular workers is currently underway ― it is slower than initially expected because of opposition from regular workers who will see the extent of their benefits slashed.
Irregular employment has been around for decades but the numbers in Korea accelerated in the wake of the 1998 financial crisis.
According to statistics, the number of irregular workers in Korea was at least 6.44 million as of this year, more than 30 percent of the workforce on the payroll. The income gap between regular and irregular workers is more than double.
Echoing Gurria, Mayor Park stressed the importance of public services for irregular workers and boasted about what Seoul is doing.
“We are offering a lot of public housing ― almost 20,000 apartments per year ― in addition to affordable and quality childcare centers.”
Gurria was in Seoul this week to host the forum on inclusive economic development for cities.
Mayors from more than 30 cities around the world flocked to Seoul for the one-day meeting, Thursday. The OECD hosts the forum every year, and Seoul was the first host in Asia.