A woman passes by a job posting for senior citizens at a welfare center for seniors in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap

About one out of every four workers in Korea is 60 or older, surpassing the proportion of those aged 50 to 59, amid the country's rapidly aging demographic.

This development fuels a debate over retirement age extension, prompted by the interior ministry and its affiliated organizations raising it for some workers to 65 from 60 earlier this month.

According to Statistics Korea, the number of workers aged 60 or older reached an all-time high of 6.74 million last month, an increase of 272,000 compared to the previous year.

The 50-59 age group comprised 6.72 million workers, followed by the 40-49 age group with 6.19 million, the 30-39 age group at 5.4 million, the 20-29 age group at 3.5 million, and the 15-19 age group with 142,000 workers.

The over-60 age group accounted for a record high of 23.4 percent of the workforce, up from 20.2 percent in May 2021.

The 50-59 age group made up 23.3 percent of the workforce, followed by the 40-49 age group at 21.5 percent. Those aged 30 to 39 constituted 19 percent of the total, while the 20-somethings accounted for 12.4 percent. The share of the 15-19 age group was 0.5 percent.

The figure of 23.4 percent represents a significant increase from July 1982, when the comparable figure was just 6 percent. At that time, the single-digit percentage accounted for only a quarter of the 26.8 percent share held by the 20-29 age group.

Meanwhile, the number of startups, excluding those in the real estate sector, reached 95,000 as of July, reflecting a 1.5 percent increase from the previous year.

Among these, the number of entities established by individuals aged 60 and older reached 13,000, marking a 14.6 percent increase from the previous year.