Trends in Government – Labor InFocus

Government vows to create more jobs and improve working environment for youth

On 22 March, the Government held an economy-related ministers’ meeting and decided the ‘Supplementary Measures for Youth Employment’.

[Table 1] Main contents of ‘Supplementary Measures for Youth Employment’

	Main Contents
Support underprivileged	To provide underprivileged youth with employment support service (employment promotion program) and job opportunities (public employment program) ※ Underprivileged youth: low-income class, long-term jobless, juvenile not attending school, etc.
Create a fair working environment	To establish basic orders in terms of employment practices (stronger labor inspections, and penalties for not signing written employment contract and for violating minimum wage. To prevent unfair recruitment practices (penalties for unfair recruitment and guideline to ban companies from asking applicants about their parents’ jobs)
Support youth hired by SMEs and strengthen employment service for SMEs	To encourage young people to work for SMEs (improving environment for SMEs targeted industrial complex, and providing SME workers with favorable interest rates) To strengthen employment service (minimizing required certifications in the NCS-based recruitment process, and helping young people who wish to work overseas)
Promote business start-ups	To strengthen step-by-step assistance for business start-ups (mentoring service) To support young people who failed in business (education and training program, sharing cases of failure)
Create more jobs in the public sector	To reflect the outcome of youth internship program into the business evaluation To hire 63,000 young people in the public sector in 2017 (to achieve 47.2% of this goal within the 1^st half of 2017)

Meanwhile, the government also conducted labor inspections in 48 movie theaters which are hiring a number of young people and, based on the inspection results, announced its plan to improve working conditions and employment practices in movie theaters on 23 March.

Among 213 cases of violation discovered through labor inspections, the government ordered to correct 201 cases, regarded 4 cases as serious offence (subject to judicial action as those have been caught within recent 3 years), and imposed fine for 8 cases.

During a meeting with executives of multiplex cinema companies, the government requested to improve the current working conditions and employment practices (e.g., converting non-regular workers into regular workers, hiring subcontracted workers directly, etc.). In response to such requests from the government, multiplex cinema companies announced that they will develop its own plans to improve their employment practices and working condition as well.

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