President-elect Park Geun-hye’s transition team has set out to help temporary workers and delinquent borrowers in a first step to fulfill Park’s campaign pledges, officials said Monday.
The transition committee, which was officially launched Sunday, has begun to review measures to turn temporary jobs in the public sector into permanent jobs by 2015, according to committee officials.
“The problem of temporary jobs has been a key issue for President-elect Park since her campaign,” said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “(We) will keep our pledge to create a trend toward (turning temporary jobs into) permanent jobs by having the public sector lead by example.”
More than 5.9 million people were working as temporary workers as of the second half of last year, making up one-third of South Korea’s total labor force, according to government data.
Under the committee’s plans, temporary workers in the public sector, such as contract workers and day workers, who have been working in the same job for at least two years will be given permanent worker status in stages.
By law, companies are required to hire temporary workers as permanent workers after two years of employment, but many firms dismiss them in advance in order to avoid taking additional legal responsibilities.
Officials also said the committee plans to launch a “people’s happiness fund” in the first half of the year as part of efforts to help delinquent borrowers struggling with heavy debts.
“(We) will start working on President-elect Park’s finance-related pledges after prioritizing those that can be fulfilled first,” said another official, indicating that the planned fund has a high chance of being realized.
As many as 1.4 million people are currently estimated to be delinquent borrowers.
The government has started to come up with measures to raise money for the fund and manage it, according to a senior official of the Financial Services Commission, the government’s top financial watchdog.
“(We) will focus on maximizing the possibility of policy realization by absorbing and developing the existing system,” the official said, asking that he not be identified. (Yonhap News)
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