Three in 10 Koreans have less income than last year

A survey showed that 16.6% of adults worked from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic last year. Six out of 10 thought that working from home is more efficient, while three out of 10 replied that their income had declined from last year. 　

According to 2021 Social Survey conducted and announced by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, 16.6% of respondents replied that they worked from home during the pandemic. The survey was carried out in May last year of 36,000 adults aged 19 years or older and the ratio of those working from home was highest in the order of professional management workers (34.6%), office workers (29.3%) and service sales (8.7%). Those who replied that work from home was more efficient (56.8%) was higher than those who replied as inefficient (43.2%). By age group, the satisfaction rate was highest among those in 19-29 at 62.8%, followed by 60s (60.6%), 30s (58.7%), 50s (57.6%) and 40s (51.45%). 　

“Operations that were difficult to handle from home” was the top reason why the respondents considered working from home as difficult (50.2%), followed by “communication issues (16.4%),” “housework and parenting makes it difficult to focus on work (10.1%)” and “lack of work from home environment (9.3%).” 　　

Meanwhile, 32.1% replied that their “household income had dropped from the previous year,” which was 9.3 percentage points higher than the previous year (22.8%). Also, 26.2% of respondents replied that their household debt was higher than last year, with respondents in their 30s and 40s accounting for the highest ratio at 35.8%, respectively. Only 8.6% replied that their debt had declined.


Choong-Hyun Song balgun@donga.com