Issue 11: Minimum Wage Current status 60. On 16 July 2016, the Minimum Wage Commission finalized hourly minimum wage for the year 2017 at KRW 6,470 (KRW 1,352,230 per month in the case of 40-hour workweek). According to the press release by the Minimum Wage Commission, this hourly minimum wage is a 7.3% rise from the year 2016, and this increase rate of minimum wage in 2017 is lower than the corresponding rate (8.1%) of 2016 but is similar to the rates in 2014 (7.2%) and 2015 (7.1%). The share of the workers whose wage will increase in step with the rise in minimum wage is 14.4% (2.1 million people), when based on the Survey on Labour Conditions by Employment Type, or 17.4% (3.36 million people), when based on the Supplementary Survey of the SEAP. The underpayment rate (the proportion of workers who are paid less than minimum wage, as percentage of all wage workers) began to decline after it peaked at 12.8% in 2009, but rebounded in 2013, increasing to the level of 2010 at 11.5% in 2015. Proportion of workers paid less than minimum wage, as percentage of all wage workers (Unit: %) Year 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Rate 11.9 10.8 12.8 11.5 10.8 9.6 11.4 12.1 11.5 (Source: Minimum Wage Commission, 2017 Analysis on Wage Conditions, etc. for Minimum Wage Deliberation, June 2016, p.12.) 61. Article 7 of the Minimum Wage Act provides that an employer may exclude his/her employees from application of minimum wage in case it is admitted that the employee has an apparently limited ability to work due to a mental or physical disability or, for another reason, it is not appropriate to apply minimum wage to the employee. The consequence is that the number of employees excluded from application of minimum wage totalled 1,133 persons in 2007, exceeded 2,000 in 2011 and sharply rose to 5,625 in 2014. It is found that approximately 80% of the workers for whom the applications for exclusion from minimum wage were filed are persons with disabilities who are working at vocational rehabilitation workplaces. It could be understandable that workers with disabilities are less able to work due to their disability and vocational rehabilitation workplaces are usually financially unstable. However, if things go on like this, workers with disabilities will never get away from low pay and poor working environment and a larger number of vocational rehabilitation workplaces would lead to broader blind spots of the minimum wage system. Admitting that this practice of permitting exclusion from minimum wage might increase job opportunities, it is still feared to worsen discrimination in employment among some particular groups of workers. Questions suggested 62. It is worrying that the proportion of workers paid less than minimum wage is still larger than 10%. Please specify the Government’s plan to guarantee these underpaid workers minimum wage. 63. It appears that, after all, the workers who may be excluded from minimum wage will be concentrated in the group of workers with disabilities and, if the provision for this exclusion is maintained, the number of workers subject to this exclusion will keep growing. Consequently, workers with disabilities will remain poor and disadvantaged even if they continue to work all their life. Please submit the Government’s policy measures and plan to address these situations. 15 / 25