Karoshi and Karojisatsu in South Korea in the era of COVID-19

(Presentation in the conference of KSOEM)

Hello. My name is Michelle Jang from South Korea.

I appreciate an opportunity to tell you about overwork death and suicide in South Korea under COVID-19 pandemic.

I lost my sister due to overwork suicide in 2018, since then I have been interested in overwork issues and joined Karoshi Watch in East Asia community in order to let people know how serious it is and solve it together.

Please let me start the presentation.

The presentation consists of 3 parts.

The 1st part is the current situation of overwork issues in South Korea and the 2nd part is to review the detailed cases of the impact of COVID-19 and the final part is about the efforts to solve the problems.

First I’d like to tell you the current situation of overwork death in South Korea with data briefly.

You can see workers’ compensation data of Karoshi which is death from cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disease during 2015 to June 2020 in South Korea.

The number of industrial accident applications classified as 'overwork death' has decreased from 585 in 2015 to 576 in 2017, and is increasing again to 612 in 2018 and 747 last year. Until June this year, there are 373 application cases.

Among these applications, the number of overwork death cases recognized as industrial accidents has steadily increased every year. It increased from 149 in 2015 to 205 in 2017 and 292 last year.

In particular, last year the approval rate was 39.1%, which was lower than in 2018, and 292 cases were recognized as industrial accidents, up 26 from 2018.

This is workers’ compensation data of mental illness from work including suicide.

In the last five years from 2014 to 2018, 966 workers suffered from mental illness at work, of which 35% were found to have committed suicide.

However, out of the total number of industrial accident applications, 522 cases were approved by the government, and the approval rate was only about 54%.

Among the number of approved industrial accidents with mental illness, 176 died. As a result of analyzing the cause of death, it was found that about 80% committed suicide due to 'overwork and stress'.

So far, we have seen the data of overwork death and suicide and now I’d like to tell you the detailed cases. COVID-19 pandemic is ongoing. We know it has seriously affected to our daily life, but do not know yet how much it has damaged our health in a workplace. The data of this year doesn’t come out yet. So this time I’d like to show you the impact of COVID-19 though the current cases.

South Korea is a famous ‘country of delivery’. The delivery market in South Korea was already estimated at 4.7 billion dollar in 2018 and 5.5 billion dollar in 2019. Furthermore, both the online platform based food delivery services and the conventional delivery service have grown rapidly, as people prefer noncontact purchase since the new coronavirus outbreak. The representative chaebol delivery companies such as CJ Logistics, Hanjin Logistics reported high increase in both sales and profit in the first quarter of 2020.

In the past eight years until 2012, the death toll of industrial accidents in the delivery industry was 18, which was 2.25 per year. However, by October this year, 13 delivery workers in their 30s and 40s even 20s died from overwork.

It is widely known that work intensity of delivery workers has increased since COVID-19.

In September of this year, the task force conducted a survey of 800 delivery workers.

The average working hours per week for delivery workers was 71.3 hours.

It exceeds the standards for overwork death in the Industrial Accident Insurance Act, which is 'working more than 60 hours a week for 3 months' or 'working more than 64 hours a week for 1 month'.

91% of respondents said their working hours have increased since COVID-19.

After COVID-19, the workload also increased. Sorting and delivery counts have increased by 35.8% and 26.8% respectively. Sorting accounts for 43% of delivery workers’ duty. But it is unpaid work under the contract.

There is a dual subcontracting structure consisting of delivery companies, sales offices, and delivery workers. So delivery workers are not regarded as workers, but economically independent workers, according to the Labor Standard Act.

The company does not have to comply with the working hours stipulated in the Labor Standards Act which is 40 hours per week, and 52 hours including the overwork and is not legally liable for the death of the delivery worker.

According to statistics in May, 60% of delivery workers registered to the delivery business are not covered by Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance. As delivery workers are not covered under the Labor Standards Act, they are not eligible for industrial accident insurance. They can get insurance according to the exemption for special types of employment of the Industrial Accident Compensation Act. However, the insured rate is very low because the employer and the employees share the payment equally and both can reject taking out the insurance.

10.

Government officials are also suffering from overwork every day due to COVID-19. 3 officials who worked on quarantine died of overwork in the first half this year.

11.

This image tells us overtime of officials who worked in a local city in February. You can see the longest one is 215 hours per month.

12.

The service regulations for government officials and local public officials separately stipulate the 'working time regulations'.

In principle, working 40 hours a week is a rule, but the head of an administrative agency or local government may order overtime work or work on Saturdays or public holidays. If they work on a Saturday or public holiday, they can leave the next normal working day off.

In addition, vacations are restricted during emergency work due to wartime, accident, and disaster, and emergency work is allowed on Saturdays, holidays and at night.

Surprisingly, there are no restrictions on overtime work, working hours on Saturdays or holidays, or working hours in emergencies, according to the service regulations for public officials.

13.

According to the Korea Suicide Prevention Center, the provisional number of female suicide deaths in the first half of this year was 1924, up 7.1% from the same period last year. This is in contrast to a 6.1% decline in men and a 2.4% decline in total deaths. They found that the number of suicide attempters in 20s women in Seoul has surged to double the level of the previous year.

This is the first time since the statistics were compiled in 1987 that only the female suicide rate has increased.

14.

The most direct cause of this year's increase in female suicide rates is reduced jobs.

As the impact of COVID-19 was concentrated in the face-to-face service industry which most workers were women.

It is also bad for women's mental health that COVID-19 has increased the burden of caring.

As everyone in the family spends more time at home, so does stress.

Even if men and women work from home together, women feel more burdened with housework and childcare.

15.

According to past experience, suicide rate in South Korea rose sharply after the IMF financial crisis. The number of people suffering from depression due to the prolonged COVID-19 outbreak is constantly increasing. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a large-scale of crisis, compounding with a health crisis and economic crisis. There are growing concerns about depression and suicide from coronavirus this year.

16.

So far, we have looked at detailed cases related to the impact of COVID-19. We can tell the situation is likely to get worse.

However despite many difficulties, there are also attempts to solve the problem.

17.

Delivery workers have been claiming a day off since they formed a labor union. August 14 was designated as the “No parcel day” for the first time after 28 years since the delivery industry has started in South Korea, due to delivery workers’ continuous struggle, increased social interests on overwork death, and intensified overwork after the new coronavirus pandemic

Delivery workers have claimed ‘additional manpower for sorting’ in order to reduce overwork. Currently, most delivery workers start working early in the morning, sorting parcels for delivery themselves for 3-4 hours, and going on a delivery. Sorting work is actually unpaid labor. If there were workers in charge of sorting parcels, working time of delivery workers would be reduced by two to three hours.

The low charges is also another problem that makes delivery workers deliver excessive amounts of delivery items and by extension the union is calling for legislation to improve the treatment of delivery workers.

As the pressure of public opinion intensified over the subsequent overwork death of delivery workers, CJ Logistics which is No.1 company in the industry and has 6 overwork deaths this year made an official apology to the public and announced measures, such as introducing additional manpower for sorting support, a specialized system not to exceed the appropriate delivery amount, and encouraging workers to insure the industrial accident insurance.

The government also apologized and promised to come up with relevant measures by November.

We need to keep an eye on it until it's done as promised.

18.

The victims and the bereaved began to raise their voices over a critical social issue based on their painful experience and demand measures to prevent recurrence.

19.

In May this year, those victims and 170 NGOs and social groups united and launched a campaign headquarter for legislation of Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act, the official name is the Act on Punishment for Corporate and Government Officers for Serious Disasters.

It is to hold both the corporation and the government responsible when workers and citizens are damaged or injured their health by corporate faults.

In order to prevent a serious accident, the subject of punishment should not be a frontline manager, but a person with authority such as a corporation, a company CEO, or an administrative manager of an institution should be punished and held responsible.

Upon obtaining the consent of 100,000 people, it is referred to the relevant committee for discussion at the National Assembly.

We want change and will make it.

20.

Thank you for your listening.