“It’s already Park Bong, but now, even if you retire, you have to suck your fingers. The government, which has been idle for 7 years without any measures, has to step in.”
A spokesperson for the Federation of Civil Service Workers’ Unions said. As the retirement age for civil servants has been delayed beyond the age of 60, which is the retirement age, 1,700 people with ‘income gap’ who cannot receive pension even following retirement have occurred for the first time. Analysts suggest that the number of retired public servants who will experience the income gap by 2033 will reach 960,000 cumulatively as the pension income gap gradually expands.
The Pension Joint Struggle Headquarters, which was created with the participation of three organizations in the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, including the Civil Service Trade Union Federation, the Teachers’ Union Federation, and the National Friendship Union, held a launching ceremony at 10:30 a.m. on the 14th and made this announcement at the meeting room of the Korean Federation of Trade Unions. The combined number of members of the three organizations is 180,000, the largest among civil servant labor organizations in Korea.
In 2015, the government and the ruling and opposition parties reached an agreement to reorganize the pension system for civil servants due to concerns regarding fiscal exhaustion. Through revisions to the pension law, the government decided to delay the retirement age in addition to the basic reform of ‘pay more and give less’.
According to the 2015 pension reform, which applies to civil servants entering office following 1996, the retirement age for civil servants is progressively delayed from the full retirement age (60). △ Retirees from 2016 to 2021 receive pension payments from the age of 60 △ Those who retire from 2022 to 2023 will be 61 years old △ Those who will retire from 2024 to 2026 will be 62 years old △ Those who will retire from 2027 to 2029 will be 63 years old △ Those who will retire from 2030 to 2032 will be at the age of 64 △ 2033 Retirees following that year will be paid at the age of 65.
As a result, the public investment claim is that public officials who do not receive a pension even following retirement have started this year. According to this argument, 1,700 people who have already retired this year will be in a state of vacancy of income for more than a year at the longest.
As expected, the income gap will gradually increase in the future. This is because the number of civil servants has increased significantly. If you calculate the number of civil servants who have entered office since 1996, it is estimated that the number of civil servants will reach 1 million by 2033. As a result of estimating the number of employees by tenure by employment period using the pension statistics data of the Public Officials Pension Service for 2021, it is argued that the number of civil servants appointed since 1996 is 96,841 in total.
“At the time of pension reform for civil servants in 2015, the government and the opposition parties made an agreement with the National Compromise Organization, promising to eliminate the income gap and to extend the retirement age due to the extension of the commencement of civil servant pension payments, but there has been no discussion so far following seven years.” . He continued, “While the minimum wage has been raised by 7.4% annually for the past five years, civil servants’ remuneration has not reached 1.9%. borderline,” he exclaimed.
Meanwhile, according to data from the National Assembly Legislative Investigation Agency, the United States and the United Kingdom do not have a retirement age for civil servants due to the prohibition of age discrimination, and the retirement age and pension age coincide. In Japan, both the retirement age and pension age are 65 years old, and Germany and France also have the same age at 67 years.
In its inauguration declaration, the Korea Pension Service urged the establishment of an organization to resolve the income gap, establish a social dialogue mechanism for the special pension committee, prevent corruption in public officials’ pensions, and establish a mechanism to legislate the remuneration of civil servants to increase real wages.
By Kwak Yong-hee, staff reporter kyh@hankyung.com
