중장년 사무직 근로자 조기퇴직 위기
삼성경제연구원 ‘중장년 화이트칼라 지속고용의 과제’ 보고서 발표
2013년 01월 09일 (수) 정태영 기자 anjty@safety.or.kr
직종별 정년제, 임금피크제 도입 서둘러야
40~50대 화이트칼라 근로자들이 조기퇴직에 직면해 있어 가계경제와 국가재정이 위협받을 수 있다는 주장이 제기됐다. 삼성경제연구소는 이 같은 내용이 담긴 ‘중장년 화이트칼라 지속고용의 과제’ 보고서를 최근 발표했다.
화이트칼라(white-collar)란 일반적으로 신사복이나 와이셔츠 차림으로 업무를 수행하는 직업 계층을 일컫는 말이다.
보고서에 따르면 2011년 기준으로 우리나라의 사무직 근로자는 총 427만명으로 2000년 313만명보다 36.4% 증가했다. 이 가운데 특히 45세 이상 59세 사이의 중장년층은 같은 기간 38만명에서 91만명으로 두 배 넘게 늘어났다.
문제는 중장년층 사무직 근로자들이 이른바 ‘4말5초 퇴직’에 직면해 있다는 것이다. 40대 말에서 50대 초반에 임원이 되지 못하면 회사를 떠날 수밖에 없는 상황에 처해 있다는 말이다.
실제로 연구소가 자체 조사를 실시한 결과에서도 화이트칼라의 체감 정년은 53.9세로 기업의 평균 정년인 57.7세보다 3.8년 짧았다. 아울러 생산직 등 비(非)화이트칼라 직종의 체감 정년 55.7세와 비교해봐도 2년이 빨랐다.
보고서는 이처럼 중장년 화이트칼라의 고용이 불안한 이유로 상대적으로 높은 임금을 첫 손에 꼽았다. 이들의 평균 월급은 젊은 층의 1.5배 수준인 453만6,000원에 달했다. 또한 이는 중장년 블루칼라의 평균 임금(255만6,000원) 비해서도 1.8배 높은 수치다. 즉 인건비에 부담을 느낀 기업에서는 조기퇴직 압력을 가중시킬 수 있다는 것이다.
인터넷 등 정보통신의 발달로 사무자동화가 급속히 진행되고 수평적 조직구조가 확산돼 중장년층을 배치할만한 관리자 직책이 줄어든 것도 문제점으로 나타났다. 2009년 15만2,000개에 달하던 관리자 직책은 2011년 14만개로 감소했다.
이외에도 △연령이 높아질수록 생산성이 저하된다는 부정적인 이미지 △준비 부족으로 전직 능력저하 △커뮤니케이션의 어려움과 조직활력 저하 등도 고용을 저해하는 요인으로 지적됐다.
한편 이들의 조기 퇴직이 가계의 소득감소는 물론 기업의 노하우 손실과 실업급여 등 고용보험 재정 악화로 연결된다는 점에서 대책 마련이 시급한 것으로 나타났다.
태원유 삼성경제연구소 수석연구원은 “90만8,000명에 달하는 중장년 사무직 근로자들이 모두 53.9세에 조기퇴직을 한다고 가정하면 실업급여 예산은 현재보다 약 4,608억원이 더 필요해 국가재정 건전성에 부담을 줄 것”이라며 “특히 자녀교육과 결혼, 주택대출 상환 등 소비지출이 최대에 다다르는 시점에서 조기퇴직으로 가계소득이 끊길 경우 자칫 사회·경제적으로 엄청난 불안이 찾아올 수 있다”고 밝혔다.
이 같은 문제를 해결하기 위해 보고서는 정부, 기업은 물론 개인의 적극적인 노력이 전개돼야 한다고 주장했다.
구체적으로는 △지속고용에 초점을 둔 직종별 정년제 추진 △화이트칼라형 임금피크제 도입 △직무재교육 강화 △근로시간 및 근무형태 유연화 등이 필요하다고 제언했다.
2013-11-10
2013-11-05
Tabloids brimming with anti-Korea diatribes
Tabloids brimming with anti-Korea diatribes
BY MARK SCHREIBER
Japan Times
October 12, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/12/national/tabloids-brimming-with-anti-korea-diatribes/#.Ul0bxRZaZZl
For 11 consecutive days from the start of this month, every front page of the Yukan Fuji, a nationally circulated evening tabloid published by the Sankei Shimbun, was embellished with at least one negative reference to South Korea. Some headline excerpts:
“S. Korea blasts into 20-year-long economic panic. President Park strays from her public commitment. Samsung shares plunge again.” (Oct. 1)
“S. Korea’s President Park makes self-destructive remark in diplomacy with Japan.” (Oct. 2)
“S. Korea’s President Park accelerates (her) tyrannical rule.” (Oct. 3)
“List of toxic foods produced in S. Korea — insecticide found in ‘fresh cucumbers’ ” (Oct. 4).
“Anti-Japanese radiation propaganda boomerangs on S. Korea’s own marine products industries.” (Oct. 5)
“Kara breakup drama; final curtain goes down on the Hanryu boom” (Oct. 6)
And so on.
It was gratifying to see I wasn’t the only one who has taken notice of Yukan Fuji’s obsession. Tokyo Shimbun (Oct. 5) ran a story titled ” ‘Ureru’ susumu gekika, fueru kenkan hodo no ‘naze’ ” (The reason for the advancing intensification and increasingly strong anti-Korean reporting: “It sells”).
When Tokyo Shimbun’s reporter contacted Yukan Fuji for a comment, he was told, dryly, “We are dismally conveying the facts.”
“Anti-Korean stories sell better than those that report amicable ties,” explained an unnamed veteran weekly-magazine reporter. “These sentiments are supported by younger Japanese and are gradually spreading among the older generation as well. And they resonate with editors at the paper in their 30s and under.”
The key word here is kenkan, written with the characters ken (to hate or dislike) and kan, for Kankoku (the Republic of Korea). The term reportedly came into vogue from 2005 in what was to become a four-volume series of manga books by illustrator Sharin Yamano (a nom-de-plume) titled “Ken-Hanryu” (“Hating the Korean Wave”). The comics initially set out to attack TV dramas and other pop culture from Korea, collectively referred to as Hanryu.
“The atmosphere produced by the anti-Japanese/anti-Korean campaigns in the respective media is as bad as I have seen in monitoring the press for over three decades,” remarked Bill Brooks, a former media analyst at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo who now teaches at the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies in Washington, D.C. He described the trend as “sad and disturbing.”
“As one result, the tone and intensity against minority groups in Japan have increased dramatically, in great part because of the use of the Internet by previously marginal hate groups to link to like-minded racists who have organized hate-speech rallies and marches in Korean residential areas.
“Unless there is leadership in both countries willing to make efforts toward reconciliation and mutual understanding, the vicious cycle of distrust, hate and recrimination is likely to careen forward, toward wrecking the bilateral relationship beyond easy repair,” Brooks asserted.
Yukan Fuji has appeared particularly incensed over campaigns by Korean lobbying groups in the U.S. aimed at vilifying Japan, such as by the installation last July of a 500-kg metal statue of a “comfort woman” — as wartime sex slaves were euphemistically called — in Glendale, California’s Central Park.
Jumping into the fray, the Shukan Asahi Geino (Oct. 17) featured a six-page report on how South Korea’s sports reportage is full of fabrications designed to incite readers. It cited the example of a column in the Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo’s online version allegedly quoting baseball superstar Ichiro Suzuki as saying, after an international game in 1997, that he wasn’t able to hit the pitches thrown by Korean hurlers because the balls “reeked so much of garlic they made his head swim.” (There is no evidence Suzuki made any such comment.)
Not all reporting on Korea has been negative. Aera (Oct. 7) examined the flareups of nationalistic sentiments at soccer games and soundly denounced the use of sports heros for propaganda purposes. And Flash (Oct. 15) ran a six-page story in FAQ format about the Zainichi (Korean residents of Japan), which largely served to debunk accusations that they were exploiting tokken(special rights), as some right-wing groups have accused them of doing.
Even monthly magazine Sapio, whose October cover story was titled “South Korea can’t become an advanced country,” has moderated its rhetoric somewhat. It quoted blogger Ichiro Yamamoto as saying the vitrolic “hate speech” that has characterized demonstrations by Japanese right-wing groups is undesirable, if for no other reason that “It just gives people ammunition to apply reverse logic and justify anti-Japanese behavior in Korea ‘because the same type of thing is happening in Japan.’ ”
From Oct. 8, Yukan Fuji began a new series by military-affairs analyst Kazuhiko Inoue about the current state of South Korea’s armed forces. Inoue noted with disdain that recently built Korean navy vessels seem to have been purposely christened with names that underscore less-than-amicable relations with Japan, such as the amphibious assault ship “Dokdo,” named after the disputed islands (called Takeshima in Japan), and “An Jung-guen,” a submarine named after the Korean patriot — or “terrorist” depending on who’s talking — who assassinated Meiji Era statesman Hirobumi Ito in 1909.
Along with its bolstered naval budget, Inoue states somewhat ominously, these effectively proclaim that Korea “views Japan as one of its hypothetical enemies.”
ROK-Japan relations alarm U.S.
The most vexing aspect of the current impasse is that neither capital seems to have a scenario for moving forward.
Michael Green
Korea JoongAng Daily
October 15, 2013http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2978840It has been axiomatic for post-war U.S. foreign policy strategy in Asia that the health of Korea-Japan bilateral relations has a direct impact on America’s position in the region. When Korea-Japan relations are tense, pressure on North Korea is diminished, other big powers are tempted to isolate the U.S.-Japan alliance, and trilateral defense cooperation necessary for the security of the Korean Peninsula falters. It’s fair to say that in the second Obama administration, one of the highest priorities in Asia policy has been to help Seoul and Tokyo find a way to improve relations. For that reason, Seoul’s harder line against Japan in various diplomatic meetings this past week came as a real shock.
When Shinzo Abe won the LDP presidency and control of the Japanese government in 2012, the Obama administration didn’t conceal its concern at his provocative statements on Japan’s culpability for wartime aggression and treatment of the people of East Asia. For some commentators in the United States, this was a moral question, but for most foreign policy professionals it was a matter of national interest that Japan not put a wedge in relations with Korea. For example, a group of leading Asia experts published a report at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2012 supporting a more confident Japanese security and foreign policy, but urging Tokyo to put a priority on relations with Korea, with particular reference to questions of history.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration sent quiet but strong signals to the new Abe administration that gratuitous Japanese gestures, such as revising the 1995 Murayama statement apologizing for the war, would have a direct impact on U.S. national interests and potentially for support for the U.S.-Japan alliance in Congress.
While some officials and experts worried that Abe would become bolder on these issues after a landslide victory in Japan’s July 2013 Upper House election, the opposite occurred. Abe’s chief cabinet secretary confirmed that the government would stick with current statements of remorse for the past; Abe and his most senior ministers did not go to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in August as some had expected; and Abe put off constitutional revision, making it clear that his highest priority would be revitalizing Japan’s economy.
Even the narrower goal of recognizing Japan’s right of collective self-defense has been delayed to next summer by Abe, an indication that the Japanese government wants to win more support from its pacifist coalition partner Komeito, and neighboring countries. The U.S. government welcomed Japan exercising its right of collective self-defense under the UN charter, as the U.S.-Japan “two-plus-two” statement indicated last week, since the main purpose would be to strengthen bilateral U.S.-Japan joint planning and operations. On the whole, it seemed that the Japanese government had heeded U.S. advice and at least returned to a status quo ante that might be the basis for steadily improving relations with Seoul.
Last week, however, the administration realized that while they had been working on Tokyo, the Korean side had dug in further. The Blue House decision to publish a detailed rebuke by President Park Geun-hye at Secretary of Defense Hagel’s request to her for improvement in ties with Tokyo after their Oct. 1 meeting was the first blow. Then reports that Park and Abe barely looked at each other during the APEC summit in Bali earlier this week revealed that the leaders’ personal chemistry would not solve the impasse. The Korean Supreme Court ruling on Japanese culpability and editorials attacking the U.S. for supporting Japan’s decision to move forward with the right of collective self-defense added to the complexity of the problem for Washington.
The most vexing aspect of the current impasse is that, unlike Japan-China relations, nobody in either capital seems to have a scenario for moving forward. Progressive Japanese politicians who had once been critical of Abe for his statements on history and eager to move forward with Korea now say that Abe has done his part and the ball is in Seoul’s court. Senior Korean political figures explain that once President Park has made a point of principle - in this case that Abe must do more - she rarely bends.
Americans are in no position to lecture others about such issues, given the ongoing self-destructive stand-off between the White House and Congress over the U.S. government shutdown. But the administration will have to think of something, because the current situation between Tokyo and Seoul will eventually begin to take a toll on both the U.S.-Japan and the U.S.-Korea alliances.
*The author is the senior vice president for Asia and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an associate professor at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
2013-11-02
Lawmaker under fire for letter to Emperor | The Japan Times
Lawmaker under fire for letter to Emperor | The Japan Times: "The repercussions continued Friday after independent Upper House lawmaker Taro Yamamoto the previous evening handed an apparently politically inspired letter to Emperor Akihito.
Many lawmakers criticized the rookie politician, a former actor, and some members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party even called for him to quit the Diet."
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