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As it is decided that the minimum wage will rise next year, the story of holiday pay is coming out again centered on the self-employed.

The self-employed are demanding the abolition of the weekly holiday allowance by appealing to the burden of labor costs, but the labor community opposes it, arguing that the wage itself will decrease.



This is reporter Jeon Yeon-nam.



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This convenience store owner divides his part-time students into 3 hours or less during the day.



It is better to work longer, but the burden of overtime pay is unavoidable.



Weekly holiday pay is a system in which workers who work more than 15 hours in a week are paid an additional day's wages.



At the minimum hourly wage of 9,160 won, if you work 14 hours a week, your monthly salary is 555,000 won, but if you work an additional 15 hours, 118,000 won is added to the weekly holiday allowance, increasing your salary to 710,000 won.



[Shin Junsu/Convenience store operation: Currently, it costs about 4.7 million won, but I think next year, if you include various insurance premiums, the monthly labor cost will be around 5.5 million won.

It's hard for us, but the workers are also having a very hard time.

I'm also running two jobs...

.]



The self-employed are responding to the burden of weekly holiday pay with a 'split part-time job'.



In March, the number of employed people working less than 17 hours per week stood at 2.319,000, a 7% increase from a year ago, a record high.



The self-employed are calling for abolition of vacation pay.



In 1953, when the system was introduced, it was necessary to protect low-income workers because there were few paid holidays, but now the situation has changed.



[Hong Seong-gil / Korea Convenience Store Owners Association Policy Director: I don't think this is the era of low wages.

I hope that the government and the politicians will discuss the abolition of the weekly holiday allowance together (I hope.)]



However, the labor community opposes the abolition, arguing that the abolition of the weekly holiday allowance could reduce real income even if the minimum wage is raised.



[Jung Moon-joo / Head of Policy Headquarters, Korea Federation of Trade Unions: Because there are about 22 million wage workers in Korea.

At least half of them are those who receive their wages on an hourly or daily basis.

(When the weekly holiday allowance is abolished) The wage itself for one day a week disappears, which leads to a major setback in working conditions.]



Next year, there will be discussions about raising the minimum wage to 10,000 won per hour, between labor costs and cost of living. It seems necessary to have a social dialogue that prevents B and E from quarreling.



(Video editing: Kim Jun-hee, VJ: Jung Young-sam)