Yesterday’s data showed that the percentage of self-employed workers in South Korea reached a record low level in 2022 due to the prolonged repercussions of the Corona pandemic.
The number of self-employed workers at the end of September last year accounted for 20.1 percent of the total 28.09 million employed people in the country, according to data released by the Statistics Korea.
This percentage is the lowest level ever since the administration began collecting relevant data in 1963, and is 17.1 percentage points lower than 37.2 percent in 1963.
The number of self-employed workers has been on a downward trend since it peaked at 6.21 million in 2002.
The number of self-employed entrepreneurs who do not have employees recorded 4.27 million last year, the highest level in 14 years, and their number has been increasing since 2019, as the number reached 4.07 million, to 4.16 million in 2020 and 4.20 million in 2021, according to Yonhap. South Korean news.
While the number of self-employed business owners decreased to 1.37 million in 2020, which is the first year of Covid-19, from 1.57 million people, the number decreased to 1.30 million in 2021, and rose to 1.36 million last year, but it did not witness a recovery to the level it enjoyed before. pandemic.
In contrast, the number of salaried workers rose to a new record of 21.5 million last year, according to the data.
