South Korea sees surge in elderly workforce participation

South Korea has witnessed a significant rise in the number of individuals aged 70 and above remaining active in the workforce, according to data from the Korean Statistical Information Service operated by Statistics Korea.

As of January 2024, approximately 1.55 million people aged 70 and older were still engaged in work, constituting 24.5% of South Koreans within that age bracket. This figure marks an 11.4% increase compared to the previous year’s count of 1.39 million individuals.

The rise in elderly workforce participation has contributed to an increased proportion of older employees within the country’s overall working population. In 2024, individuals aged 70 and above comprised 5.6% of the total workforce, up from 5.1% in January 2023.

Among the older workforce, around half of the individuals continuing to work beyond the age of 70 were aged 75 or above, totalling 750,600 individuals and representing 18.8% of the 75 and above age group.

Analysis of employment sectors revealed that approximately 30% of employees aged 70 and above are employed in agriculture, fishing, and forestry, with the next most common fields being social affairs and the services industry, accounting for 22.8%.

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The Ministry of Labour’s classification of “simple labourers”, denoting non-specialists requiring minimal training, encompassed 42.1% of the older workforce. Meanwhile, 29.6% were specialists in the agriculture, fisheries, and farming sectors.

The trend of increasing elderly workforce participation aligns with South Korea’s rapidly ageing society. Recent statistics from the Korean Statistical Information Service indicated that 20.1% of jobseekers utilising the state-run Worknet platform in the previous year were aged 60 and above, reported The Korea Herald.