The government revised the law raising the mandatory retirement age to 60 in May 2013. From 2016, the law affected all companies with more than 300 workers, as well as public organizations.

Since the revision, the average retirement age of salaried workers has increased every year. It rose from 58.8 in 2013 to 59.4 in 2014, 59.8 in 2015 and to 60.3 in 2016. The age went up a further 0.8 year in 2017.

But the ministry pointed out that it needs to come up with measures to improve the effectiveness of the legal retirement age because many private companies still stick to the past practice of demanding their workers take early retirement.

"We will focus our efforts to ensure aged workers are employed in a stable manner till they reach the age of retirement," Kim Kyung-seon, a top ministry official in charge of policy for the aging society, said. (Yonhap)