SEOUL, Nov. 17 – The number of part-time workers in South Korea has topped the 2-million mark, data showed Monday, as the government is striving to create more jobs amid concerns that Asia’s fourth-largest economy may relapse into a slowdown.
According to the data compiled by Statistics Korea, the number of part-time workers had reached 2.03 million as of August, up 7.9 percent, or 149,000, from a year earlier.
It marked the first time that the number of part-time workers exceeded 2 million. Those workers accounted for 7.9 percent of total employment, the data showed.
A part-time worker here usually refers to an employed person working less than 36 hours a week.
The comparable figures for 2013 and 2012 were 18.83 million and 18.26 million, they showed. Over the past decade, the number almost doubled from 10.72 million in 2004, the data showed.
The Park Geun-hye administration is striving to boost job creation and raise the country’s employment rate to 70 percent over the next five years from last year’s 64 percent.
To achieve that target, the government has been stepping up efforts to create more part-time jobs, reducing the average number of work hours, supporting job-seeking efforts by young people and helping to resolve difficulties facing smaller firms in hiring talented workers, the official added.
In particular, the government has been trying to bring more women into the nation’s workforce by encouraging companies to offer flexible hours and other incentives to help those who need to juggle home life and work.
