Korea faces worker shortage in 2017

Korea is projected to start to see a workforce deficit from 2017, a market report said yesterday.

According to the Germany-based finance company Allianz SE, the number of young people aged between 15 and 20 in Korea is expected to fall short of the number of people approaching or entering retirement in 2017.

The company released yesterday a report assessing how the ongoing demographic change will impact the global labor market. Japan already faces the problem, with just six million people leaving school available to replace 10 million employees nearing retirement, while China will begin to see its workforce fall short in 2019, the report said.

In the United States, on the other hand, the number of people of working age is still on the rise, the report showed. It was attributed to the country’s attractiveness as an immigration destination, as well as to a rise in its birthrate.

Meanwhile, in Europe, seniors aged 60 to 65 will outnumber those entering the job market by 200,000 this year, the report said, with 28.8 million people in the older age bracket, and 28.6 million between the ages of 15 and 20.

Allianz stressed that increasing the proportion of older people working will be the challenge facing labor market policy in the future.

“The key milestones have already been achieved in pursuit of this objective in recent years, with moves to reduce the number of early retirement incentives being introduced as part of pension system reforms in many EU countries,” explained Michael Heise, chief economist and head of corporate development at Allianz.

“The task now is to create the right environment on the labor market,” he said.

link: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2917842