Labor Ministry February Survey Results… Recovery from Decline in January After 46 Months
(Seoul=Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Eun-kyung – The number of employees in domestic businesses has returned to an increasing trend.
This comes just a month after it turned to a decline for the first time in 46 months due to a construction industry slump last month.
According to the labor force survey results for February released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor on the 27th, the number of employees in businesses with one or more employees was 19,957,000, an increase of 22,000 (0.1%) compared to the same month last year (19,936,000).
The increase in the number of industry employees had been slowing down since 2022 due to changes in demographic structures and had turned to a decline in January this year, but it increased again in just one month.
By status, permanent employees increased by 22,000 (0.1%) compared to the previous year, and temporary day laborers increased by 19,000 (1.0%), while other employees decreased by 19,000 (-1.6%).
By size, businesses with fewer than 300 employees saw an increase by 4,000 to 16,593,000, while those with 300 or more employees increased by 17,000 (0.5%) to 3,364,000.
By industry, there was growth in the healthcare and social welfare services (4.1%) and professional, scientific, and technical services (1.5%), but declines continued in construction (-5.6%) and retail trade (-1.5%).
Particularly, the construction industry has been declining for eight consecutive months since July last year.
In the case of manufacturing, which has the largest share of employees among all industries, the number of employees decreased by 6,000 (-0.2%) compared to a year ago.
Kim Jae-hoon, head of the Labor Market Survey Division at the Labor Ministry, said, “The significant increase in healthcare and welfare service workers and the slowdown in the construction industry’s decline contributed to the turnaround,” and predicted, “If the healthcare and welfare sectors continue their strong performance and the construction sector does not further worsen, the increase is likely to be sustained.”
In February this year, new hires and separations decreased by 1.7% and 7.1%, respectively, compared to the previous year.
In terms of hiring, there was a 9.2% increase in permanent positions, but a 2.8% decrease in temporary day labor positions.
Meanwhile, as of January, the total wage per employee in businesses with one or more permanent employees was 4.967 million won, a 15.8% increase compared to the same month last year.
The real wage, reflecting the level of prices, was 4.292 million won, which is a 13.3% increase compared to 3.79 million won in the same month last year.
This increase is attributed to the fact that special bonuses, such as Seollal (Lunar New Year) bonuses, increased as Seollal occurred in January this year instead of February in the previous year.
The average monthly working hours per employee were 140.6 hours, a 14.8% decrease compared to the same period last year.
The Ministry of Labor analyzed that this was due to four fewer working days compared to the previous year.