[Editorial] The Key to Extending the Retirement Age Is Youth Jobs and Strengthening Productivity (February 2, 2026)
- #연금특위
![[Editorial] The Key to Extending the Retirement Age Is Youth Jobs and Strengthening Productivity (February 2, 2026)](/uploads/2026/02/2026020119110524336_1769940665_1769930668_20260202012110365.jpg)
(Since more than 20 years ago, the OECD Secretariat has been recommending that Korea reform its rigid labor market.
If labor market reform — especially the “post-retirement rehiring” that this editorial emphasizes — had become widespread, it would have been possible to extend the National Pension's mandatory contribution age by five more years and raise the National Pension's income replacement rate by 10% (5 percentage points) or more.
This could have been a genuine measure to strengthen the public pension system.)
However, the retirement age extension cannot be addressed apart from youth jobs and productivity. Youth unemployment has reached a serious level. Innovative technologies such as physical AI are revealing the potential to shake up the entire labor market.
There are even analyses suggesting that these technologies will threaten, first of all, the jobs of the younger generation just entering the labor market.
Also, if the retirement age is extended without reforming the seniority-based wage system, companies burdened by labor costs will make the adverse choice of reducing the scale of new hiring.
Under a rigid labor market structure, the benefits of extending the retirement age may go only to large companies and regular (permanent) employees. Far from raising productivity, there is also a possibility that this ends up preserving the jobs of the current generation at the expense of future generations.
Therefore, there needs to be social dialogue that evenly incorporates the views of businesses, labor unions, and both younger and older generations, and that addresses labor market reform together.
There is a need to shift the focus of discussion from 'extending the statutory retirement age' to 're-employment.'
Companies should be given autonomy, while government policy actively encourages re-employment, and at the same time a balance point that protects youth jobs must be found.
