, Columnist
How to Overcome Losing 600,000 People a Year
South Korea’s population is rapidly aging and set to start shrinking. More needs to be done to replenish the workforce.
Sharing the road, not a problem.
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You know times are hard in provincial South Korea when the guy selling walkers and hearing aids can only make ends meet by day trading.
Ho Cheol Lee, 52, keeps his eyes on flashing stock quotes while his shop, crammed with wheelchairs, canes and other equipment for seniors, sits empty. Lee has run the store for roughly two decades, and his plight shows just how dire things have become. Few of his neighbors make enough money sticking to their day jobs, he says, and many have turned to selling beauty products door-to-door or scouting workers to tend the nearby garlic fields.