MOSCOW, October 26 (RIA Novosti) - Many elderly South Koreans have become less and less willing to stop working entirely when they reach the retirement age and are striving to maintain relevance in the workforce as their pensions are insufficient to pay the bills, France24 reported on Sunday.
"I wasn't able to put much aside when I was working because nearly all of it went towards raising and schooling my four kids," said elderly South Korean Kim Min-Su, whose monthly pension totals 590,000 won ($562); both him and his wife live off this money. Kim says that he needs at least 2.0 million won to lead a normal life, adding that only their children’s support helps him and his wife to make ends meet.
Finding a new job is a huge challenge for South Korean retirees as companies are not interested in hiring people over the age of 65. People with meager pensions often have to accept low-paying offers and low-skilled jobs or go into business for themselves, investing their savings in starting a fast-food restaurant or a small grocery store.
"About 900,000 retirees flood into the self-employment sector every year, causing cut-throat competition," said South Korea’s Finance Minister Choi Kyung-Hwan "The struggling owners of these businesses present one of the biggest structural problems in our economy," he said, explaining that newly-established enterprises are at risk of going bankrupt due to the enormous business competition.
To improve the situation, the government has adopted a new law stating that people cannot be forced into early retirement before they turn 60, Towers Watson reported. The South Korean authorities have also arranged training courses for retirees, which are aimed at offering professional development in certain spheres, such as information technology. However, according to France 24, these courses turn out to be ineffective, as companies are unwilling to hire elderly people for positions in web design or programming.
