Presented by Jong-Jin Kim, Ph.D.

Director of KEAD

Outcome of Korean customized training in terms of disability employment

Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled(KEAD)

KEAD is a semi-governmental agency under the Ministry of

Employment and Labor. It was established in

1990 in order to support job creation and employment stabil-

ity of persons with disabilities in Korea.

KEAD is comprised of Headquarters, 15 branches, and 5 vo-

cational competency development institutes. As of now, the

total number of employees is 625.

 

2

Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for

persons with disabilities

Background of Customized Training

Operation of Customized Training

Outcome of Customized Training

Limitations of Customized Training

Implications

Outline

3

Korea has been enforcing Employment Quota System as a major vehicle for the realization of employment equality of PWDs.

4

Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs

Employment Quota System

Employment Quota System introduced in 1990

The obligatory employment rate is 3% for state-owned organiza-

tions and 2.7% for private companies (applied only to companies

with 50 or more employees).

Companies with employment obligation pay levy for the number

of persons below the obligatory employment rate.

5

Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs

Employment Quota System(continued)

Companies employing persons with disabilities in excess of the

obligatory employment rate enjoy subsidy

subsidy differs according to the employment period, gender, and

degree of disability.

6

Policy Outcome

Unemployment rate has dropped to 6.6% in 2010 from a whopping 32.1% in 1990, when Korea first introduced the policy.

Employment rate of companies with obligation to employ persons with disabilities increased to 2.24% from 0.52% in 1990.

(2.40% for governmental sector, 2.19% for private sector)

The related institution has improved greatly such as acknowl-edgement of employing one person with severe disability as em-ploying two persons with mild disabilities, target expansion of oblig-atory employment rate to include companies with more than 50 employees(currently companies with 300 employees), increase of obligatory employment rate(2%→3% for public sector, 2%→2.7% for private sector)

Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs

Challenging Tasks

7

As of 2010, the unemployment rate(6.5%) of persons with disabili-ties is two times higher than that of persons without disabilities

The benefit of the employment quota system is concentrated on persons with mild disabilities. As of late 2010, rate of employees with severe disabilities in the companies with obligation to employ PWDs is a mere 17.7%.

Mild disability (%) Severe disability (%)

Total 82.3 17.7

Governmental sector 85.3 14.7

Private Sector 81.3 18.7

< Rate of mild and severe disability among the employed >

Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs

Challenging Tasks (continued)

8

Insufficient improvement in employment quality

Wage gap between persons with disabilities and persons without disabilities did not decrease.(the average wage of PWDs is 65% of their counterparts). Employment instability such as unpaid and daily work did not improve.

The larger a company’s size, the less active disability employment

is.

Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs

Customized training was adopted to resolve problems arising from disability employment such as poor employment quality and instability.

9

It is difficult to flexibly open and close training courses according to market demand due to the characteristics of training centers.

Imbalance in supply and demand arose because of supplier-cen-tered training regardless of market demand.

Awareness about training problems in the existing voca-tional training centers

Background of Customized Training

10

Some trainees received re-training in companies after they get employed due to the technological gap between training centers and companies.

Awareness about training problems in the existing voca-tional training centers (continued)

Background of Customized Training

A New Idea - Customized Training

11

It is the custom-made training to suit companies’ requirements.

Companies can engage directly in all training procedures or sug-gest opinions including selection of trainees, establishment of training purpose and period, design of training programs, and implementation of training.

Companies employ all trainees who completed training courses unless they are incapacitated or unqualified.

It strategically targets large-size companies with low disability employment rate.

Background of Customized Training

Customized training has been phased in from 2007 and ex-panded annually. In 2010, 72.5% of total trainees(1,035 people) received the training.

Training courses are various such as mechanic CAD, machine equipment, electronic circuit design, design, programming, telemarketing, office machine assembly and inspection and so on.

The rate of large companies(with more than 300 employees) among all companies joining in the training reaches 40%.

The average training period is 7.5 months.

12

Operation of Customized Training

13

Procedure of Customized Training - Planning

14

Procedure of Customized Training – Selection of Trainees

15

Procedure of Customized Training – Implementation of Training

16

Procedure of Customized Training – Employment

High training outcome

17

Customized training produced the outstanding outcome compared to existing training in terms of the employment rate(The average employment rate is 92%), wage, employment duration, satisfac-tion level.

Large companies that used to avoid disability employment by reason of lack of suitable personnel with disabilities began to hire PWDs through the customized training. Thus, It served as an effective way for inducing disability employment in large companies.

Increase of disability employment in large companies

Outcome of Customized Training

18

For instance, top-notch companies such as Samsung Electronics, Sam-sung Electro-Mechanics, LG Electronics, Standard Chartered First Bank, Canon Korea Business began to employ PWDs.

Increase of disability employment in large companies (continued)

Outcome of Customized Training

Customized training minimizes unnecessary loss of training and shortens training period because it has more clear goal and trainees get skills companies require.

Consequently, customized training in Korea boost satisfaction of both PWDs and employers and made a big contribution to improvement of quality in disability employment, which emerges as a big problem recently.

As customized training is driven by corporate demand, there is a possibility that persons with severe disabilities whose mar-ket demand is low are excluded from the training.

It is difficult to persuade companies that avoided employing PWDs to participate in customized training.

There is a concern that trainees can’t learn comprehensive skills related to overall training courses because most of the customized training involves specific skills training which companies want.

19

Limitations of Customized Training

The key to success of customized training is to induce more active participation and intervention of companies in the train-ing procedures.

Extra measures such as supported employment which helps training and employment of persons with severe disabilities should be prepared because there is a risk that customized training can exclude training of persons with severe disabili-ties.

20

Implication

Implementing customized training with individual companies which wish to hire a few persons with disabilities is not cost-effective.

In this case, it is more efficient to make a joint agreement and

implement the customized training with group of similar

businesses or employers’ union by industries.

21

Implication

If you need further information regarding custom-ized training, please e-mail me.

jjkim@kead.or.kr

Thank You!

22