SEOUL: When Hwang Kwang-jo’s factory in Seoul faced a staff shortage earlier this year after Nepali workers and young locals left, it hired a 61-year-old man to take over some of the work .

While the job, which involves handling heavy alloy bars, isn’t ideal for workers nearing retirement, the pandemic has shrunk South Korea’s foreign labor pool, forcing companies to widen the net.

This challenge is compounded by the reluctance of young Koreans to accept blue-collar jobs.

“It’s incredibly difficult to fill vacancies, I’ve never received resumes from people in their twenties,” said Hwang, general manager of Iljin Enterprise, an aluminum casting factory that typically employs about 35 people. . “We were able to find Mr Oh in April after the two Nepalese had to leave the country due to visa issues.”

The rush for labor in South Korea, where unemployment hit a near-record low of 2.9% in July, has led to an increase in the number of older people in the labor force, 58% of increases in jobs being due to people aged 60 and over. .

But even that was not enough to ease labor shortages in the industrial and agricultural sectors of Asia’s fourth-largest economy, creating further pressure on prices with inflation already at its highest level in 24 years.

In South Korea, the fastest aging society in the world, 33.1% of people aged 70 to 74 are still working, exceeding the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) scale measuring employment for the age group and well above the OECD average. 15.2%.

Central bank data shows that more than 230,000 people aged 60 or over have found jobs in factories and construction sites since the start of 2020, while younger people have left these sectors.

While South Korea’s foreign worker contingent, at 848,000, is relatively small compared to other industrialized economies, migrants make an important contribution to the manufacturing sector.

Since the start of 2020, the monthly influx of new foreign workers is around 35% of what the country had in 2019, before the pandemic, according to government data.

Japan is experiencing a similar problem, with strict pandemic controls preventing migrant labor, prompting an even greater reliance on the elderly population to fill vacancies.

Hwang of Iljin Enterprise says that although the physical demands of working at his factory make it better suited to young foreign and local workers, he doesn’t really have a choice.

“If I can’t hire young people or foreign workers, it would be my last choice, but maybe I should hire more older people,” said Hwang, who recently gave his entire team an extra raise. 700,000 won in monthly bonuses. he gave his foreign staff.

The government said last week it planned to ease visa restrictions and cut red tape for foreign workers to fill vacancies.

For Kim Ji-hwang, a property developer in Danyang, two and a half hours south of Seoul, a staffing shortage prompted him to hire 64-year-old Park Jang-young.

Park’s new job requires him to clean trucks and equipment at the development site and earns him about 3.7 million won (RM12,590) per month, much more than his previous job in a parking lot.

“I know my boss prefers to find young people, but young people go to Seoul after graduation – even foreign workers are picky, they have a good network and a good community to share information about salaries and working conditions. work,” Park said. “I’ll stick to this job unless I’m fired – it’s a good salary, I think, for my age.” – Reuters