"Until 60 years old ": Age Limits at Work and What Korean Law Actually Allows

If you've been working in Korea long enough, you've probably heard some version of this: "Until 60 na lang tinatanggap dito, ate." Male or female, doesn't matter — once you're near that number, a lot of doors quietly start closing. Job postings that don't say it outright but somehow always seem to prefer someone younger. Companies that let you know, without quite saying it, that your time is almost up.

For a long time I just accepted this as one of those unspoken rules of working here — something you plan your life around instead of something you question. But the truth is, Korean law actually has a lot to say about age and employment, and not all of it lines up with what we've been told to just accept.

What counts as age discrimination under Korean law

Korea has a law — the Act on Prohibition Against Age Discrimination in Employment and Promotion of Employment of Older Workers — that generally prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on age, without a justifiable reason, in several key areas:

• recruitment and hiring
• wages and other valuables aside from wages, and benefits packages
• education and training opportunities
• work location, changes in position, and promotion
• retirement and dismissal

This covers the whole employment relationship, from the moment you apply for a job to the day you leave it. If a standard is applied that leads to a result particularly unfavorable to a certain age group, without justifiable reason, that itself can be considered age discrimination — even if the rule doesn't mention age directly. This is called indirect discrimination: a rule that looks neutral on paper (not mentioning age at all) but ends up disadvantaging a certain age group in practice.

So is "we only hire until 60" automatically illegal?

Not necessarily — and this is the part that surprises people. The law does recognize some justifiable reasons for age-related limits, such as:

• when a certain age is genuinely required because of the nature of the job itself (the law gives the example of casting an actor to play a young character in a drama)
• when there's a real, reasonable difference tied to length of service that affects wages or benefits
• when a retirement age is properly set out in the labor contract, work rules, or collective agreement
• when support measures exist to maintain or promote employment of a certain age group, as defined by law

A fixed retirement age, for example, isn't automatically illegal age discrimination — if it's clearly established through proper channels. But an employer refusing to hire someone, or dismissing someone, purely because of their biological age, without weighing their actual skills, performance, or ability to do the job, is a different story. Retirement age set in advance through proper process is treated differently from an employer simply deciding, informally, "we don't take people over 60" as a blanket rule applied without any real justification.

Real examples the law specifically calls out as age discrimination include:

• setting age limits in open recruitment for jobs that don't actually require a specific age
• excluding a certain age group from education and training opportunities without objective reason
• collectively transferring older employees to disadvantaged positions, or preferring younger employees in promotion decisions, without justifiable reason
• dismissing a group of employees mainly because of their age, especially when the real motive is that they've been with the company long enough to be earning higher, seniority-based wages — this is treated as indirect age discrimination, even if age itself is never mentioned as the reason

That last one is worth sitting with. If a company lets go of its older, more senior employees mainly because they cost more to keep, and dresses it up as "restructuring" or "downsizing," without a real evaluation of their actual skills and performance — that can still be age discrimination under the law, just wearing a different name.

If you believe you experienced age discrimination

Someone who believes they've experienced age discrimination at work can file a petition with the National Human Rights Commission, generally within one year from when the discriminatory act occurred. From there, the process can involve the Ministry of Labor and the local Labor Office, which can investigate and issue a correction order — requiring the employer to stop the discriminatory act and restore the affected person to their original position, among other remedies. Employers who discriminate based on age during recruitment and employment, without justifiable reason, can also be fined.

What I want kababayan our age to know

I'm not saying every "until 60" policy you hear about is illegal — some retirement ages are properly set and legitimate. But I am saying: don't assume every closed door is automatically lawful just because someone said it with confidence. If you're being turned away from opportunities, denied training, or eased out of your position mainly because of a number and not because of your actual ability to do the work, that's worth knowing isn't simply "just how things are" here. It has a name, and there's a law that at least tries to address it.

Huwag nating tanggapin agad na "wala na tayong magagawa" dahil lang sa edad. Alamin muna kung ano talaga ang sinasabi ng batas.

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Majella Pagayon is the founder of Pinoy Sarang, a community platform dedicated to helping Filipinos navigate life, work, education, and immigration in South Korea. She regularly writes practical guides, safety tips, and educational resources for Filipinos living and working abroad.