Retirement is out, new portfolio careers are in

IN THE SHADOW of towering apartment blocks in Nowon-gu, a suburb of Seoul, employees of CJ Logistics, a large South Korean delivery company, gather at the local welfare centre. A truck pulls up and the group, mostly men in their 70s, leap to their feet to unload parcels. “It’s far better than staying at home,” says Eun Ho Lee, a chirpy 77-year-old who in his younger days ran a bedlinen business. Like so many of his generation in this country, he has no pension and lives mainly on his savings, so the 800,000-900,000 won ($700-800) he makes from this job are welcome. He cannot imagine himself ever leaving.

There are drawbacks to older workers, admits a local supervisor; they carry fewer boxes and are sometimes slower than their younger colleagues. But since the company pays its employees per delivery, that does not matter, and the unhurried chattiness of this side of the business, the “Senior Parcel Delivery Service”, seems to appeal to customers.