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Increase of training
costs, expansion of subsidies for taking classes and other institution improvement measures have been devised to promote vocational
ability development for small and medium enterprises.
Despite the steady increase of vocational ability development
training provided by employers, the training results were weak for small and medium enterprises, non-regular workers, and
other marginalized workers who are exposed to poor training conditions.
Subsidies for taking classes, a worker support
project, also showed poor results due to the strict requirements for implementing organizations, and the insufficient training
environment for small and medium enterprises. Due to these circumstances, the Ministry of Labor plans to improve the system
for vocational ability development training provided by employers.
Starting from February 2005, the Authorized Worker
Subsidies for Taking Classes Project will be expanded to include e-Learning so that workers can receive training anywhere
at anytime. From January, the consortium for training small and medium enterprise workers will be consistently expanded through
utilizing training facilities of large corporations.
Also, the Ministry plans to implement the proper support level
of the vocational ability development training provided by employers.
The Ministry also plans to provide more training
opportunities to vulnerable workers of small and medium enterprises by relaxing the minimum training time requirements (3
days and 20 hours), and implementing improvement measures starting from the second half of the year 2005, such as the new
Small and Medium Enterprises Learning Organization Promotion Project and other issues that require legislative revision.
Employment Rate of the Disabled
in Government Exceeds 2%
The Ministry of Labor has reported employment
status of public officials with disabilities and measures to increase their numbers for 2004, to the Cabinet meeting.
According
to the report, as of the end of December 2004, the total number of disabled public officials employed by Mandatory Employment
System of Disable Persons in 87 central and local government offices increased by 658(12.1%) and 0.17%p from last year to
6,079, with employment rate at 2.04%. This is the first time the rate has exceeded 2%, since the system was introduced in
1991.
Those that have achieved the rate of 2% have greatly expanded from 39 institutions last year to 54 this year.
The strong commitment of the Participatory Government and growing interest of institution heads on the underprivileged, including
the physically challenged are believed to be main reasons behind this achievement.
The government will continue to
make great efforts to become the role model for the private sector (employment rate 1.08% as of the end of 2003) to follow.
Also, for institutions with below 2% rate, the government will enhance support for each of them in hiring more people with
disabilities, so that all of them will reach the target rate by 2007. And for those with above 2% rate, the government will
shift its policy to encouraging employment of the severely disabled.
To this end, the government is planning to actively
pursue increasing employment of the severely disabled by accelerating localized vocational skills development at the Korea
Employment Promotion Agency for people with disabilities.
Division for the Employment of the Disabled (Tel. 2110-7085)
Construction Site Safety Inspections
in Preparation for Thawing Season
The Ministry of
Labor will conduct safety inspections in about 800 construction sites for four weeks from February 14 to March 11. The purpose
of this inspection is to prevent industrial accidents in preparation for thawing season when construction work begins in full
scale.
About 800 workplaces have been selected for inspection, including sites in danger of landslides, sites with
previous cases of industrial accidents, and sites where there have been reports on possible industrial accidents.
The
inspection team consists of labor inspectors from local government labor offices, and experts from Korea Occupational Safety
and Health Agency. For construction sites that were given orders from the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, local
governments, and other public institutions, the inspection team will cooperate with related agencies to conduct the inspections.
Points of inspection include preventive measures for workers falling from high places, falling objects and landslides,
wearing safety helmets, and safety education for workers.
Workplaces that have violated the Industrial Safety and
Health Law, such as negligence in preventing workers falling from high places, would be subject to legal action and other
strict measures.
[Division in charge] Industrial Safety Division, TEL : 507-0728
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