Working 3 jobs a week: More Koreans forced into multiple gigs
Working six nights a week from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m. at a Coupang logistics center, Park Min-seung (alias), 54, returns home at 4:50 a.m., naps for about two hours, and heads out again by 7 a.m. to work at a grocery store until 10:30 a.m. From 11 a.m., he starts his third job delivering packages door-to-door in a nearby apartment complex. His grueling schedule ends around 1 p.m. — when most people are just finishing lunch — and he snatches another few hours of rest before repeating the cycle. Park, a father of two, works approximately 73 hours a week, a figure that doesn’t reflect the added burden of late-night shifts, which labor law calculates at 1.3 times normal hours for health risk purposes. “It was exhausting at first,” he said, “but now my body has adjusted.” Despite his heavy workload, Park’s pay barely keeps up with inflation. His main job at Coupang is technically stable under a fixed-term contract, but the hourly wage increased by only 100 won (7 cents) this year, now just 40 won above the minimum wage. "The price of bread and instant noodles has jumped, but wages b
May 22, 2025By Hankookilbo
