- Government aims at creating more jobs and promoting better treatment for non-regular workers
The government held a Cabinet meeting and approved Regulations on the Establishment and Management of the Presidential Committee for Job Creation on 16 May. The Presidential Committee is established to discuss overall employment issues including employment policy review, assessment, planning, and coordination between government agencies.
< Presidential Committee for Job Creation: Structure & Members >
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Summary |
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| Members | ▴Chair: President
▴Vice-chair: Lee Young-sup, Special Advisor to the President for Policy (a former lawmaker of the Minjoo Party) ▴Secretary: Presidential Senior Secretary for Job Creation ▴Ex officio members (15 persons): Heads of policy research institutions, Minister of Employment and Labor, and other relevant Ministers ▴Non-government members (15 persons): Representatives of business organizations (including the Korea Employers Federation) and umbrella unions, civilian experts, etc. |
| Structure | ▴Job Creation Planning Office (Head: Secretary for Job Creation): to support committee operations
▴Expert team: to discuss employment issues by subject ▴Special team: to discuss special agendas with stakeholders ▴Regional groups: to be established in each metropolitan region |
After completing organization of the Cabinet and appointment of secretaries, the new government plans to form the Working Group on Preparation for the Presidential Committee for Job Creation. The Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) will participate in the presidential committee, but the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) will decide whether to join the presidential committee at the meeting of its central executive council.
On top of this, the government is pushing ahead with converting the status of non-regular workers to regular employment in the overall public sector. President Moon Jae-in visited Incheon International Airport (IIA) on 12 May and announced that the government will open “an Era of Zero Non-regular Workers in the public sector.” Chung Il-young, CEO of the IIAC promised to switch the status of all non-regular workers, including sub-contracted workers, to regular employment, setting up a task force to do just this on 13 May.
On 17 May, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance had an emergency meeting with 10 public corporations including the Korea Electric Power Corporation which is currently hiring a number of non-regular workers employed by sub-contractors in order to analyze each public corporation’s non-regular employment situation and come up with measures to convert worker status as necessary.
As of May 2017, there are 285,000 regular workers, 23,000 open-ended contract workers, 37,000 fixed-term workers, and 83,000 contracted/dispatched workers in the public sector.