The Seoul Labor Center released the survey outcome which it has questioned 689 financial workers during the latter half of the year. The survey targeted the vulnerable groups of workers in the financial industry such as bank tellers, call centers, debt collection and insurance sales.

The average work-hour per day was 8.76 hours. 86.3% of respondents replied that they are facing offensive customers at work and 75.9% replied that customers ask them to do more than what they can do at their discretion.

72.7% replied that their emotion is thought to be like a commodity and 73.5% said that they are emotionally hurt by the demeanor of the customers(a quarter of them very seriously). 72.3% said that they were abused verbally and 8.6% of them experienced the physical violence.

To improve the situation, forum panelists suggested the development of manuals, increased job discretion to the workers, abolition or change of current performance appraisal system, strengthened role of trade unions for better protection along with the institutional protection.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government signed a memorandum of understanding with 18 business entities for the protection of emotional workers and plans to adopt a social accord on the protection of emotional work in early next year and expand the MOUs at the workplaces.

reported by Yang Woo-ram
translated by Kim Sung-jin