Senior citizens take up half of new job posts in 2022: data

People visit a job fair in Seoul, Nov. 21. Yonhap

More than half of new job positions in 2022 were taken by senior citizens, while young people took up about 1.15 percent of the year's newly added posts, data showed Wednesday.

Korea added 870,000 new jobs in 2022, marking a 3.4 percent on-year increase to bring total jobs to 26.45 million, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

Of the total, jobs for those aged 60 and older rose the most by 440,000, followed by 260,000 new jobs for people in their 50s.

The number of jobs for people in their 40s grew 100,000 last year, and job posts for those in their 30s added 50,000. People in their 20s and younger saw 10,000 more jobs in 2022.

"Demand for senior citizens to take jobs in the health and social welfare sector has grown," an agency official said. "The fall in the sheer number of people in their 20s and younger also led to the fewest job additions among the age group."

Of the total jobs, 24 percent were taken by people in their 50s, followed by those in their 40s with 23.8 percent and people in their 30s with 20 percent.

Men took up 56.7 percent of the country's total jobs in 2022, the data showed.

Of the newly added jobs, 11.4 percent were in the government and unincorporated organizations, while 47.4 percent of the jobs were from incorporated companies. Privately owned entities took up 31.4 percent of the total jobs in 2022.

By sector, the health and social welfare sector added 120,000 jobs on-year last year, followed by the wholesale and retail sector with 150,000 new openings. The manufacturing sector had 90,000 more jobs, while the financial and insurance field shed 10,000 jobs in 2022.

Some 5.07 million jobs, or 19.2 percent, were in the manufacturing sector, and the wholesale and retail fields accounted for 12.4 percent of total employment. The health and welfare sector had 9.6 percent, or 2.53 million jobs.

The report was compiled based on information about subscriptions to forms of social insurance, and the data do not match the number of the employed in 2022 as one person can be employed in multiple positions.

The number of employed people came to 28.08 million in 2022, up 816,000 from a year earlier, according to the separate data by the agency. (Yonhap)