Record Number of Koreans Aged 60 or Older Employed

Korea saw a record number of working senior citizens last year in another sign of the country's rapidly aging society.

Statistics Korea said on Monday the number of employed people aged 60 or older reached 5.86 million in 2022, up 452,000 from a year earlier and accounting for 20.9 percent of all employed people.

It is the first time since statistics began in 1963 that the age group has added more than 400,000 workers in a year and the proportion surpassed 20 percent.

The number of self-employed among the group has also jumped by a staggering 76 percent over the past six years to 129,000, the highest on record.

The trend is expected to continue as senior citizens now account for over a quarter of the country's population.