The emergence of a new labour market: The changing nature of work and retirement

In an astonishingly short time, Korea has experienced an economic transformation such that the nation’s economy now largely resembles that of other advanced industrial countries whose employment is primarily found in the service sector. In little over a decade, from 1990 to 2004, the number of service industry workers swelled dramatically from 8.5 million to 14.6 million, an increase of 72 per cent, while the number of employees in the manufacturing industry declined. In 2005, the ratio of the economically active population in the service sector was 64.4 per cent, compared to 27.5 per cent in the manufacturing sector and 8.1 per cent in farming, forestry and fishing. There is no doubt that the Korean economy and society have rapidly converted from one characterized by a traditional industrial and manufacturing model to a post-industrial model (Shin 2007: 39).