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 recruitment process. It is said that an employee who came in as a junior for one year signed a contract with a higher salary than him. Last year, the surname’s salary was around 33 million won, but the new employee’s salary was more than 1 million won. Sung said, “It is unfair that the rate of salary increase is frozen compared to inflation, but it is difficult to accept that a new employee receives a lower salary than an inexperienced new 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 ‘senior employees’. Although it is a solution that the small and medium-sized business owner came up with following much deliberation, it is pointed out that it is urgent to take measures as it can harm the organizational culture in the long run.
According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor on the 2nd, in the first quarter of this year, the shortage of businesses with one or more employees was 642,000, an increase of 227,000 (54.7%) from the same period of the previous year. According to vacant job statistics released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor every month, there were 228,000 vacant jobs 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 shortage of manpower is mostly concentrated in SMEs. For this reason, small and medium-sized business owners are in a position to make up for the shortage even by offering a high starting salary to cry and eat mustard. On the other hand, among second- and third-year employees whose wages are reversed, complaints are pouring in, such as, “If the salary is lower than that of the junior employees I teach, it means that the company doesn’t want me” and “I wonder if I should change jobs.”
The business owner is also concerned regarding the stinging eyes of existing employees, but complains that there is no other way. Lee Mo, in his 60s, who runs a restaurant in Incheon, said, “It was difficult to find an employee, so I raised the hourly wage and posted a job announcement, but when the original employees asked why they were the same, I had nothing to say.” Koo, in his 40s, who closed the restaurant in the first half of this year, said, “It’s worth calling for skilled kitchen staff.” he confessed
It is also pointed out that the more fundamental solution is to resolve the ‘manpower mismatch’ in the domestic labor market, where the unemployment and the job shortage coexist. Kim Seong-hee, a professor at Korea University’s Labor Research Institute, emphasized, “There are unavoidable problems that SMEs face, such as subcontracting and subcontracting, but it is necessary to develop self-help measures to attract young job seekers, such as increasing transparency in business operations and expanding sustainability.”
On the other hand, in the part-time job market, the treatment of workers in the service industry, such as restaurants, is getting lower. In particular, the reason is that employers are mainly recruiting ‘split part-timers’ to avoid the ‘weekly holiday allowance’ system, which requires that employers give paid leave one day a week to workers who work more than 15 hours a week.
According to the weekly holiday pay system, if an employee works more than 15 hours a week, he/she must be paid 6 days’ wages even if he/she works 5 days. This is a burdensome expense for the self-employed who want to reduce labor costs as much as possible due to an increase in hourly wage 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. Instead, short part-time jobs that work twice a week for a total of 8 hours are the trend.
In fact, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the number of employed 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 those employed over 36 hours, representing long-term work, is on a downtrend 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 burden for part-timers is increasing, so we are only posting part-time jobs when people need them.” People are not saved,” he said.
As a result, young people prefer part-time platform jobs with free labor contracts and higher hourly wages. Mo (26), a university 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 following working for two months at the distribution center in 3 to 4 weeks.” “Full-time part-timer There aren’t many seats, and my friends prefer platform work,” he said.
[박홍주 기자 / 박나은 기자]
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