Photo : YONHAP News
The proportion of self-employed people in the country’s workforce fell below 20 percent for the first time this year.
According to Statistics Korea on Monday, five million 636-thousand people, or 19-point-seven percent of the working population, were self-employed through August this year.
If there are no significant changes in the labor market, the overall figure for the year is expected to fall below 20 percent for the first time since 1963, when the nation started compiling data.
The corresponding figure stood at 37-point-two percent in 1963 and 28-point-eight percent in 1989, when it hit less than 30 percent for the first time ever before declining to 20 percent as of last year.
The number of individuals who work without pay in a business operated by a family member was 882-thousand, accounting for three-point-one percent of the country’s workforce.
Combined, the number of self-employed people and unpaid family workers totaled six million 518-thousand, or 22-point-eight percent of all workers.