"2 out of 10 Office Workers Face Involuntary Unemployment This Year"... 6%p Increase in One Year

About 2 out of 10 office workers have experienced involuntary unemployment this year, according to a survey.

Yonhap News

The civic group Workplace Bullying 119 announced the survey results containing this information on the 22nd.

According to a survey conducted by the polling agency Global Research from the 2nd to the 11th of this month, targeting 1,000 office workers nationwide aged 19 and older (95% confidence level, sampling error ±3.1 percentage points), 18.2% of respondents experienced involuntary unemployment this year. This is an increase of 5.9 percentage points compared to the same survey conducted in December last year (12.3%).

The rate of unemployment among non-regular workers was 27.8%, more than twice that of regular workers at 11.8%.

Among respondents, 39.1% answered "yes" when asked if there is a possibility of unemployment in 2025.

Also, more than half of the respondents, 50.7%, said that the period they could endure financially without hardship in case of sudden unemployment is "6 months." The most common response was 3 to 5 months at 31.7%, followed by 1 to 2 months at 19%.

63.9% of respondents said that social security systems are insufficient when facing unwanted unemployment or similar situations. The response of "insufficient" for this item increased by 12.5 percentage points compared to last year's survey (51.4%).

The higher the age group, the higher the percentage of respondents who thought social security systems were insufficient. Among those aged 50 and older, 75.7% expressed the opinion that the social security system is inadequate.

Workplace Bullying 119 emphasized, "It is urgent to discuss expanding the social safety net to reduce blind spots in unemployment benefits and protect vulnerable workers in the workplace." In particular, they added, "Recent emergency martial law has caused political and economic instability," and "It is necessary to end political instability as soon as possible to prevent an economic crisis."