“Is it a shame to be an elder?” … Conflict erupts when wages are reversed with young people due to labor shortages

– Sung Mo (27), a second-year employee at a small and medium-sized company in Jongno-gu, Seoul, recently learned a surprising fact during the company’s hiring process. An employee who arrived as a junior for a year is said to have signed a contract with a higher salary than him. Last year the salary of the surname was about 33 million won, but the salary of the new employee was over 1 million won. Sung said: “It is not fair that the wage increase rate is frozen relative to inflation, but it is difficult to accept that a new employee receives a lower salary than a new inexperienced employee.” It’s bittersweet like that, “he said.

A phenomenon in which some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) set the starting salary for new hires higher than that of existing employees is causing complaints from “older workers”. Although it is a solution that the small and medium-sized entrepreneur has come up with after much reflection, it is stressed that it is urgent to take measures as it can damage the organizational culture in the long term.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor of 2, in the first quarter of this year the shortage of companies with one or more employees was 642,000, with an increase of 227,000 (54.7%) compared to the same period of last year. According to job vacancy statistics published each month by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, there were 228,000 job vacancies in Korea in August. △ 137,000 in August 2020 △ 179,000 in August 2021

Due to the tendency of young people to avoid SMEs, this labor shortage is mainly concentrated in SMEs. For this reason, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs are able to make up for the shortage even by offering a high starting salary to cry and eat mustard. On the other hand, complaints are pouring out among second- and third-year employees with reversed pay: “If the salary is lower than the junior employees I teach, doesn’t that mean the company doesn’t want me? ” and “I wonder if I should change jobs”.

The business owner is also concerned about the stinging eyes of existing employees, but complains that there is no other way. Lee Mo, in her 60s, who runs a restaurant in Incheon, said: “It was hard to find an employee, so I increased my hourly wages and posted a job posting, but when the original employees asked why they were the same, I didn’t. he had nothing to say. ” Mo, in his forties, who closed the restaurant in the first half of this year, also said: “It’s worth calling skilled workers in the kitchen.”

It is also stressed that the most fundamental solution is to resolve the ‘labor mismatch’ in the national labor market, where unemployment and job shortages coexist. Kim Seong-hee, a professor at Korea University’s Labor Research Institute, stressed: “Although there are inevitable problems SMEs face, such as subcontracting and subcontracting, self-help measures need to be developed to attract young people into job seekers, such as increasing transparency in commercial operations and expanding sustainability “.

On the other hand, in the part-time labor market, the treatment of workers in the service sector, such as restaurants, is decreasing. In particular, the reason is that employers mainly hire “split part-time” to avoid the “weekly holiday allowance” system, which requires employers to grant paid holidays one day per week to workers who work. more than 15 hours per week.

Under the weekly leave system, if an employee works more than 15 hours a week, he must be paid 6 days’ wages even if he works 5 days. This is a heavy expense for self-employed workers who want to reduce labor costs as much as possible due to an increase in hourly wages and various fixed costs. For this reason, in service industries such as restaurants and cafes, full-time work of 8 to 12 hours a day and part-time work of 16 hours or more three times a week are gradually disappearing. On the other hand, part-time jobs with part-time work that work twice a week for a total of 8 hours are trending.

In fact, according to statistics from the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the number of employees with 17 hours or less per week is steadily increasing to 1.9 million in 2020, 2152,000 in 2021 and 2.43 million in August 2022. Conversely, the number of employees over 36 hours, which represents long-term work, is down to 12,000 in 2011, 78,000 in 2021 and 15,439,000 in August 2022.

Jeong Mo (45), who runs a restaurant in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, said: “As prices continue to rise, the hourly wage load for part-timers is increasing, so we are posting only part-time jobs. when people need it “People are not saved,” he said.

As a result, young people prefer to work part-time on a platform with free employment contracts and higher hourly wages. Mo (26), a college student who works part-time at the distribution center whenever money is needed, said: “If you do a regular part-time job, you can earn money that you can earn after working for. two months at the distribution center in 3 or 4 weeks. ” “Part-time full-time There aren’t many places and my friends prefer platform work,” he said.

[박홍주 기자 / 박나은 기자]
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