The state-run Korea Labor Foundation will host an international conference on employment and welfare support customized to life stages to cope with a fast-aging society next Tuesday.

“This symposium will be an opportunity to produce customized employment support programs for each life stage and to expand employment network services to better connect workers with jobs,” said KLF Secretary-General Moon Hyung-nam.

The event also aims to prepare a customized welfare-employment service for employers by reducing long working hours, attaining labor productivity and creating new jobs.

President Park Geun-hye pledged to provide different support systems from the cradle to the grave in the areas of child care, tuition and medical insurance.

She aims to create a virtuous circle in which welfare leads to job creation ― especially in welfare provision, employment of the poor and provision of high-value social service jobs.

The results of the symposium are expected to lay groundwork for laborers and employers to implement employment and welfare policies.

Seoul National University professor Ahn Sang-hoon is to lead the event. Ahn, a 44-year-old welfare professor, is well known for working in President Park’s campaign team on welfare.

Educated at Uppsala University in Sweden, Ahn has consistently called for Korean-style welfare. His belief is that welfare should be provided not through cash support but through social services. Working in the presidential transition committee’s division on employment and welfare, Ahn had a significant impact on President Park’s current welfare policies.

From the government, Minister of Employment and Labor Phang Ha-nam is to attend the symposium. Labor unions including the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Employers Federation will send delegates to represent laborers’ interests in the panel discussion.

Distinguished scholars include Dominique Anxo, a labor economics professor at Linnaeus University in Sweden, who will give a lecture on employment and welfare for each life stage. Professor Gerhard Bosch, a political science professor at the University of Duisberg-Essen in Germany, will talk about Germany’s labor hours to provide insight on the Eastern European welfare system.

KLF is a public institution under the Ministry of Employment and Labor that was founded in 2006. The foundation aims to facilitate a joint effort between management and laborers to create new jobs. The foundation also seeks to expand welfare support for underprivileged laborers and promote corporate social responsibility to alleviate social bipolarity.

The 2013 International Symposium on Life Course Employment & Welfare Strategy will be held at Seoul Garden Hotel. More information is available at www.nosa.or.kr. 

By Lee Sang-ju (sjlee370@heraldcorp.com)