Korea

Korea’s low youth employment rate has negative consequences for the young people concerned and the economy as a whole. Raising youth employment is a priority, particularly as Korea faces the most rapid population ageing among OECD countries. Low youth employment is due to a mismatch between education and the labour market, reflecting a large skill gap between highly-educated youth who race for credentials to secure attractive careers and older workers retiring from jobs that require less human capital. The share of university graduates among young Koreans is the highest in the OECD, but their employment rate is relatively low even as small firms confront serious labour shortages. Dualism in the labour market (between regular and non-regular workers) and the product market (between small and large firms) encourages young people to queue for jobs in large firms and the public sector to avoid low-wage precarious jobs. Raising the youth employment rate requires breaking down dualism while reforming the education system. Vocational education in secondary schools, which has shrunk while becoming another route to tertiary education, should be improved to make it a direct path to employment. Expanding the approach of Meister schools and the work-learning dual programme would help in that regard. Tertiary education should become more flexible and responsive to the demands of employers. Active labour market policies should focus less on direct job creation and more on job placement and training.

Using micro-data from the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), this paper seeks to answer how age, gender and childbirth are reflected in literacy proficiency, employment prospects and pay, and to which extent labour market outcomes are determined by these demographic profiles rather than education, skills and experience. It finds that literacy skills and tertiary education, objective measures of skills, which are highly correlated with employment and productivity in most OECD countries, do not significantly affect the likelihood of employment in Korea. Work experience and educational level are highly correlated with pay. Age, gender and parenthood are strongly correlated with both pay and employment. The weak link between objective skills and labour market outcomes points to a misallocation of human capital and likely a substantial loss of productivity.

Social protection in Korea is designed around traditional forms of employment and excludes a substantial share of workers in non-standard employment. The resulting social protection gaps compound income inequality and undermine financial sustainability as uninsured persons rely on tax-financed benefits. Besides, Korea’s tax and benefit system discourages taking up or returning to low-paid work from social assistance or unemployment benefits. Expanding the reach of employment insurance while redesigning the tax and benefit system could boost work incentives and reduce inequality and poverty. The elderly poverty rate is persistently high, partly because public pensions and social insurance were introduced relatively recently. Better targeting the means-tested Basic Pension could reduce elderly poverty considerably. Lengthening careers is essential to ensure pension sustainability and adequate retirement income for future retirees. Shifting from a severance pay system to a corporate pension would help improve retirement income and lower employers’ incentives to push for early retirements. Reducing inequalities in access to health and long-term care will require expansion of primary care and affordable quality home-based care. This will also help address the overreliance on hospitals and cope with rising demand.

The report investigates the role of government programmes in strengthening SMEs’ resilience to external shocks, by focusing on SME digitalisation policies implemented in Korea during the COVID-19 outbreak. The report examines how digital tools and services have made SMEs more resilient during the pandemic, as well as the challenges that SMEs face in 'going digital'. The analysis is complemented by additional evidence and insights coming from international policy experience.

Korea is a top player in emerging digital technologies, with an outstanding digital infrastructure and a dynamic ICT sector. The COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the importance of digitalisation to contain the spread of the virus, by allowing quick testing and tracing of infected people, and spurred the development of the 'untact economy'. Remote access both facilitated physical distancing and mitigated the economic impact of the crisis by enabling more people to continue working. Digital technologies offer opportunities to raise firms’ productivity and the population’s well-being. However, wide productivity gaps between large firms and SMEs and between manufacturing and services weigh on economy-wide productivity, which is far below the OECD average. A wide skills gap between youth and older generations prevents an increasing share of the population from taking part in and enjoying the benefits from a digitalised economy. This paper suggests ways to narrow the digital divide by enhancing the diffusion of digital technologies among firms and among individuals. Increased participation in quality ICT education and training for students, teachers, SME workers and older people is key to address the lack of adequate skills and awareness of digital benefits or dangers (online security, cyberbullying, addiction). Promoting innovation networks between SMEs, academia and large firms through vouchers or platforms can support SMEs’ R&D and commercialisation of innovative goods and services. Waiving stringent regulations through regulatory sandboxes can help identify and alter regulations that hinder the adoption and diffusion of digital technologies.

The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.

The design of intergovernmental fiscal relations can help to ensure that tax and spending powers are assigned in a way to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Decentralisation can enable sub-central governments to provide better public services for households and firms, while it can also make intergovernmental frameworks more complex, harming equity. The challenges of fiscal federalism are multi-faceted and involve difficult trade-offs. This synthesis paper consolidates much of the OECD’s work on fiscal federalism over the past 15 years, with a particular focus on OECD Economic Surveys. The paper identifies a range of good practices on the design of country policies and institutions related strengthening fiscal capacity delineating responsibilities across evels of government and improving intergovernmental co-ordination.