By Kang Yoon-seung
SEJONG, Oct. 21 (Yonhap) -- The proportion of non-regular workers among South Korea's wage earners reached a record high of 38.5 percent in August, the data ministry said Wednesday, with their wage gap with regular workers also reaching a new record.
The total number of non-regular workers came to 8.67 million as of August, up from 8.56 million a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics.
South Korea conducts an annual survey on employment types among the country's economically active population based on figures from every August.
The percentage of non-regular salaried employees in the country's workforce was up from 38.2 percent tallied in 2025, the report showed.
Job seekers write resumes at an employment center in Seoul on Oct. 19, 2026. (Yonhap)
An official from the ministry said both the number and proportion of non-regular workers reached their highest levels since South Korea began compiling related data under the current method in 2003.
Male workers accounted for 3.7 million of the non-regular workers, while the number of female workers came to 4.96 million.
By sector, 21.5 percent of non-regular workers were employed in the health and social welfare sector, followed by the accommodation and food service industry with 9.9 percent.
As of August, the total number of wage workers came to 22.52 million, with those holding regular positions reaching 13.85 million, or 61.5 percent, of the total.
The report also showed that the average weekly working hours for non-regular workers came to 29.5 hours, up 1.3 hours from a year earlier. The figure for regular workers came to 40.4 hours, compared with 36.5 hours a year earlier.
The average monthly salary of non-regular workers over the past three months came to 2.11 million won (US$1,590), up 24,000 won from a year earlier.
In comparison, the monthly wage of regular workers came to 4.05 million won, up 156,000 won over the period.
The wage gap between the two groups widened by 132,000 won to 1.94 million won from the previous year, the report showed.
Their average length of service came to three years, up one month from a year earlier.
The data ministry said 36.5 percent of non-regular workers were enrolled in the national pension program, down 0.6 percentage point from a year earlier. It showed that 53 percent of them were covered by the public health insurance program, down 0.2 percentage point over the period.
By comparison, 88.6 percent and 95.7 percent of regular workers were enrolled in the national pension and public health insurance programs, respectively.
According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) data, temporary workers accounted for 27.5 percent of the total laborers in South Korea in 2025, compared with 5.1 percent in Britain and 14.2 percent in Japan.
The OECD calculation only considers wage earners and salary workers whose job has a pre-determined termination date as temporary workers and does not put part-timers, outsourced laborers and those who renew their employment contracts in the category.
A job seeker writes a resume in an employment event held in the southeastern port city of Busan in this file photo taken on Sept. 17, 2026. (Yonhap)
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