A man examines a bulletin board set up for a job fair at Seoul City Hall in central Seoul, March 6. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea on Monday recommended raising the legal retirement age to 65 from 60, saying that it is important to protect the financially vulnerable older adult population. Newsis

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea on Monday recommended raising the legal retirement age from 60 to 65, emphasizing the importance of protecting the growing number of financially vulnerable older adults in the country.

In a statement sent to the chiefs of the Office for Government Policy Coordination and the Ministry of Employment and Labor, Chairman Ahn Chang-ho and three commissioners urged the government to take steps to address the gap between the legal retirement age and the age at which individuals can access their national pension.

"The gap between the legal retirement age of 60, and 65, the age at which people can start receiving national pensions, means that people in Korea face an income cliff of a minimum of five years, which seriously threatens their economic security," the commission said.

The recommendation comes as the country grapples with various issues related to its rapidly graying population amid its persistently low birthrate. According to data from Statistics Korea, people aged 65 or higher account for 20.3 percent of the population, with the figure projected to reach 40 percent by 2050.

Without any decisive state action, this could mean many more economically struggling older people, the commission said.

"Korea's relative poverty rate of older people aged 66 or higher stands at 39.7 percent, which is far higher than other OECD member countries," the commission said. "Data shows employment rate for older people has steadily risen every year to 37.3 percent. Also, many retire much earlier than the legal retirement age, at 49.4 on average."

The relative poverty rate refers to the ratio of people with an income below 50 percent of the median income. The average figure for OECD member states was 14.2 percent in 2020.

Last year, the government adopted an experimental policy to raise the retirement age for its 2,300 cleaning and facility maintenance workers from 60 to 65.

The commission praised the pilot policy but also acknowledged that implementing the same policy would be challenging for many other positions, especially in the private sector where firms have to choose between keeping older employees and hiring young ones.

"Therefore, for the retirement age extension to be successful, it is necessary to formulate policies that would address the wage adjustment of older employees, and this needs to be promoted in a way that expands the working life of the older adult population without negatively affecting other age groups," the commission said. "As seen in Japan's case, the government needs to come up with ways to support companies, such as the expansion of direct financial support for labor expenses, in order to balance employment and wage adjustment."

Speaking to reporters later in the day, Labor Minister Kim Moon-soo said raising the retirement age would inevitably hurt job prospects for young people amid the current economic downturn.

"If you think about who the weaker party is between young jobseekers who have never had a job and workers who would soon retire, I think it is the young people, and the government should focus more on protecting them," he said. "Raising the retirement age will be difficult in the near future."

According to a survey conducted jointly last year by four Korean pollsters, 86 percent of respondents said they were in favor of gradually raising the retirement age to 65, while only 11 percent opposed the idea.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health and Welfare announced last month that it was reviewing the policy idea of raising the minimum eligibility age for older adult welfare benefits — from 65 to 75 — amid rising concerns about the soundness and sustainability of the welfare system.