Jikganggapjil119 Survey of 1,000 Workers
Types of Wage Arrears: Basic Salary - Retirement Pay - Allowances in Order
More Wage Arrears Among Non-Regular and Production Workers
A survey revealed that four out of ten office workers have experienced wage arrears, meaning they did not receive their wages on time.
Civil society organizations Workplace Bullying 119 and Beautiful Foundation commissioned the public opinion research firm Embrain Public to survey 1,000 office workers from the 1st to the 6th of this month, and reported these results on the 24th.
According to the survey results, 437 out of 1,000 office workers (43.7%) experienced wage arrears. Among the types of unpaid wages, the base salary was the most common at 30.2%, followed by severance pay (28.1%), overtime/night/holiday work allowances (27.8%), other allowances (24.5%), and annual leave allowances (23.2%).
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The experience of wage arrears differed between regular and non-regular workers, as well as between office and production workers. Among non-regular workers, 49% reported experiencing wage arrears, and among production workers, 51.5% had such experiences, which is about 10 percentage points higher than regular workers (40.2%) and office workers (39.8%). Among production workers, 37.7% had unpaid base salary, and 40.2% had unpaid overtime/night/holiday work allowances. For office workers, the types of unpaid wages were base salary at 26.4% and overtime/night/holiday work allowances at 23.6%.
Among office workers who experienced wage arrears, 59.5% (multiple responses allowed) requested payment from their company. However, 22.4% quit their job, 19.0% pretended not to know, and 41.4% gave up on taking action. Only 24.3% reported the issue to relevant institutions such as the Ministry of Employment and Labor or the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.
When asked why they did not respond to wage arrears, 43.5% of workers said it was because they believed they would not receive the unpaid wages even if they took action. Other reasons included concerns about future disadvantages in personnel matters and lack of time. The response citing lack of time was significantly higher among non-regular workers (16.9%) compared to regular workers (2.2%).
Regarding the seriousness of wage arrears, a majority of respondents (66%) agreed that it is a serious issue. As for the reasons why wage arrears occur, 69.6% pointed to the fact that employers who commit wage arrears are not properly punished. Suggested measures to improve wage arrears included abolishing the offense of conditional prosecution withdrawal (26.7%), extending the statute of limitations for wage claims from 3 to 5 years (18.9%), applying delayed interest to all unpaid wages (14.2%), and expanding the advance payment system (where the state pays on behalf of the employer) (13.3%).
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