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[이데일리 이윤화 기자] It was found that young people in their 30s or younger were hit hardest among the ongoing employment cold waves in the aftermath of Corona 19 last year. As the number of unemployed people poured out, the rate of increase in debt was more than twice that of the middle-aged and elderly, and the earned income decreased the most among all age groups. The gap between the wages and the rich is expected to widen more and more amid the intensifying’K-character polarization’ due to the prolonged economic recession.
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Hiring cold wave direct hit… Young people with more debt and less income
According to the National Statistical Portal’s Household Trend Survey on the 15th, the average amount of debt held by the age of 39 and younger (financial debt plus rental deposit) increased 8.8% from the previous year to 121.4 million won in the third quarter of 2020 from 11,161 million won in 2019. did. During the same period, those aged 40-49 increased by 4.3% and those aged 50-59 increased by 4.7%.
On the other hand, as of the third quarter of last year, the earned income of households under the age of 39 was 38.8 million won, down 4.3% from the same period last year. During the same period, those aged 40 to 49 decreased by only 1.3%, those aged 50 to 59 increased by 2%, and those aged 60 and over increased by 5%.
This is interpreted as the impact of the deterioration of the job market and employment of young people caused by Corona 19. According to the’December 2020 and Annual Employment Trends’ released by the National Statistical Office last month, the unemployment rate for youth aged 15 to 29 last year rose to 9% in two years after 9.5% in 2018. The youth employment rate also recorded 41.3%, down 2.5 percentage points from the same month last year. The number of employees in their 20s and 30s decreased by 146,000 and 165,000, respectively, and by more than 300,000 in one year.
At the 1st Financial Monetary Committee held on January 15th in 2021, a member of the Financial Services Commission said, “Employment in the face-to-face service industry can be expected to recover when vaccination begins in earnest. Even if it passes, the aftereffects will remain for a long time.”
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K-polarization, young people were no exception… Experts “Continue aftereffects”
Last year, as the employment crisis caused by Corona 19 increased, the polarization of the economy as a whole accelerated. Among them, the widening gap between the rich and the young was most noticeable.
According to a report on “Changes in Wage Inequality by Region” released by the Korea Employment Information Service in January, the Gini coefficient in the first half of last year was 0.306, up 0.012 from the same period last year (0.294). The Gini coefficient is a representative income distribution indicator representing wage inequality, expressed as a number from 0 to 1, and the closer to 1, the greater the inequality.
In particular, in the classification by age group, the inequality of wages among young people under the age of 29 was remarkable. The Gini coefficient for those under the age of 29 rose 0.017 from 0.197 in the first half of 2019 to 0.214 in the first half of last year. This was greater than the increase of those aged 30 to 54 (0.011) and over 55 (0.014) during the same period.
The deepening polarization of the youth is also seen in real economic indicators. The wage gap between regular and non-regular workers is widening amid the decline in the total number of youth jobs. According to the Statistics Korea’s 2020 Economically Active Population Survey, the average monthly wage for young regular workers (2.65 million won) and non-regular workers (1.6 million won) was only 61% of regular workers.
The problem is that this polarization of young people will continue even after the Corona 19 lull. Experts predicted that the competition among young people who could not enter society during the coronavirus would become more serious afterwards.
Lee Seung-yoon, private vice-chairman of the Youth Policy Coordination Committee (Professor of Chung-Ang University), said, “It was the highest every year since the statistics on youth unemployment were published in 2000, but now, the expanded youth unemployment rate has reached 26%, making it a more serious situation where more than one in four people are not even willing to find a job.” He said, “The problem of increasing debt among young people will lead to housing problems a year later.”
Vice Chairman Seung-yoon Lee advised that as a solution to this, support for youth jobs should be increased in sustainable industries.
“As the labor market participation is delayed, the polarization will inevitably worsen, so increasing jobs is the top priority. However, the method of increasing and absorbing short-term jobs has reached its limit,” he said. “In addition to creating private jobs such as direct corporate support, He stressed that a breakthrough government policy such as fostering sustainable industries such as green industries and establishing a youth vocational training system is needed.
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