Work-life balance is priority for Korea’s MZ Generation

Work-life balance turned out to be the most important factor for Korea’s MZ generation (Millennials and Generation Z) and preferred jobs located in the Seoul metropolitan region and annual pay around 30 million won.

The Korea Enterprises Federation released the results of the “MZ Generation Perception on Decent Jobs’ survey on Tuesday. One thousand MZ generation job seekers aged 20 to 29 (born in 1984- 2003) participated in the survey.

Meanwhile, 66.5% of the surveyed chose ‘work and life balance’ as the most important factor (multiple choice) for determining a decent job, followed by ‘fair compensation’ at 43.3%. ‘Good welfare (32.8%)’, ‘horizontal work culture (25.9%)’ were also chosen. Only 14% opted for ‘job security’. The survey results reflect a shift in perception in which job security and compensation was considered top priority.

And 50.9% of the respondents said that they considered ‘around 30 million won’ to be appropriate amount of compensation, followed by ‘around 40 million won (27.6%)’ and ’50 million won or higher (12.2%)’.

The Seoul metropolitan area was the most preferred workplace location at 50.7%, much higher than provincial regions (11.6%), while 37.7% said they didn’t mind location, reflecting more diversified ways of work such as working from home. When asked about how long they expected to work, the response was highest in the order of: less than 10 years (35.1%), until regular retirement age (29.8%), 10-20 years (27.6%) and more than 20 years (7.5%).


Do-Young Kwak now@donga.com