This study aims at establishing concepts and measurement standards for decent job, then carrying out analysis on reality of decent job in Seoul through this and drawing policy implication in the basis of these analysis results.
Decent job in this study was defined as not only the job where both the man and the woman can obtain productive labor conforming to social standard under the value of freedom, justice, human dignity but the one where social recognition and subjective satisfaction exceed certain level together with adequate reward.
Conditions of this decent job are various according to the objects such as academic backgrounds, ages, business types, however they were established centered on the indices actually measurable or formally provided. Conditions of the decent job were measured in the average level and in the individual level centered on remuneration, job stability, proper working time, job’s social reputation etc in detail. At this time, standard of remuneration was established at higher wage than median one of national wage workers and proper working time per week at more than 15 hours but less than 49 hours. And job stability was judged by if the worker is a regular employee or not and job’s social reputation was judged utilizing job’s Socio-Economic Index popularly used internationally to satisfy the standard of good quality’s job in case the score’s standardized figure is more than 0.
Main analytical results are as follows. First, the number of decent jobs in Seoul during 2013 was 1,613,689, which is the biggest among 16 cities/provinces and 35.1% of whole country is concentrated in Seoul. Decent jobs in Seoul were increased by an annual average of 5.3% during period between 2008 to 2013. Second, decent jobs in Seoul in terms of demography are as follows. People in 30∼40 among the age group occupy 67.4%, men 63.9% in the classification by sex, those graduated from universities 90.5% in the classification by academic background. Third, decent jobs in Seoul in the industrial divisions level occupy relatively high percentage in professional services, wholesale trade and commission, education, publishing activities etc. Fourth, the result of questionnaire survey of specialists on relative importance(weighted value) for decent job constituent variable showed the order of job stability, wage, proper working time, existence of social insurance, social reputation of the job. Fifth, according to obtained result of job quality index utilizing the weighted value for decent job constituent variable, the index of job quality in Seoul was over average national level, maintaining more than level 70. Sixth, comparing job quality index in Seoul with trend of the number of decent jobs since 2008, it showed same pattern until 2011, and a little difference has been discovered later. So to speak, the number of decent jobs has continuously been increased since 2011, the index of job quality shows stagnated level after it dropped from 70.7 in 2011 to 70.2 in 2012. This is owing to the change of job quality’s strength according to the difference of importance in the factor consisting decent job. The result disassembling job quality consisting factor shows job stability is more or less weakened comparing to other consisting factor.
In order to create continuously and maintain decent job in Seoul later, following policies are required. First, multiphasic job policy which can raise quality of the job deviating from simple quantified increasing is required. Second, considering the change of industrial structure, it is required to actively foster prospective industry which can generate a lot of decent jobs. Third, in order to enlarge good quality’s manpower, it is required to enhance manpower fostering program considering characteristics of industries and occupations.