SEJONG -- They were the backbone of the country’s social and economic development in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of them are still working in core posts in the public and private sector.

But now South Korea’s baby boomer generation -- born between 1955 and 1963 -- are having to deal with a retirement that many are not ready to accept.

As some employers have a mandatory retirement age 60 or earlier, boomers have been leaving their main jobs since 2010, with knock-on effects on the job market, as many seek to remain in work.

As of May 2019, the number of senior citizens in Korea -- those aged 65 or over -- was 7.8 million, or 15 percent of the total population of 51.8 million. That is a sharp rise from 10.4 percent in May 2009.
 

That proportion is projected to expand rapidly when the baby boomer generation starts to reach that threshold, with older people living longer and birthrates still stubbornly low.

Statistics Korea predicts that the percentage of seniors will reach 25 percent by 2030 after posting 15.7 percent in 2020. This means 1 out of every 4 Koreans will be aged 65 or above in about a decade.

From early 2030, the senior population will include the “second baby boomer generation,” which refers to those born between the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The state-run agency also forecast that the portion of senior citizens will surpass the 30 percent mark in 2036, 40 percent in 2051 and 45 percent in 2063.

Government officials estimated that the nation will see about 800,000 retirees per annum, starting from this year.

Nevertheless, the outgoing first baby boomers are taking a somewhat different position from those in their 70s.

“The baby boomers don’t consider themselves old. Right after retirement, many of them seek to return to public life via a variety of senior-hiring programs,” said an employment market researcher in Seoul.

He cited data from Statistics Korea, which showed that the number of those employed aged 60 or over was 4.81 million as of May 2019, an increase of 350,000 from a year earlier.

The employment rate of those aged 60 or over also rose from 41.7 percent to 42.8 percent over the one-year period.

They often become taxi drivers, janitors for apartment complexes or commercial buildings, or workers for large supermarkets. Some chose to move to rural areas and become farmers.

New types of jobs for the growing number of retirees are being created, a recent case being parcel delivery assistants. When young regular workers for parcel delivery companies put down products from their trucks at the entrance of apartment complexes, the assistants complete the deliveries by taking the parcels to the front door of each home.

The number of senior citizens who are training to be baristas has also increased sharply. And some retirees are hired by conglomerates to take care of the underprivileged in the society as part of their corporate social contribution work.

Still, a large portion of retirees choose to open their own stores, or become franchise owners of convenience stores or fried chicken outlets.
 

Labor market experts have continued to highlight the risks of people in their 50s or 60s becoming self-employed after working as salaried workers for decades.

In particular, a huge number of self-employed people faced business closures in recent years amid an economic slowdown and aggravated burden of labor costs in the wake of minimum wage hikes.

Some online commenters, citing negative effects like for the self-employed, welcome the extension of retirement age to 65.

Others say that the age extension would be acceptable, unless it deprives the youth of employment opportunities or causes the extension of first age to receive national pension.

By Kim Yon-se (kys@heraldcorp.com)