More than 36 percent of people hired by South Korean public firms and institutions are non-regular or outsourced workers as of last year, government data showed Saturday.
Out of 328,519 workers in 332 state-funded institutions, 36,499 people were non-regular employees with two-year contracts as of end-2016, according to the data released by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.
These workers have to quit their posts at the end of the contract if their employers refuse to extend the term of employment. The current labor law requires employers to offer temporary workers full-time positions after two years.
At the same time, the companies were using 82,264 outsourced workers last year, which are not subject to the two-year hiring restriction.
As a result, a total of 118,763 employees, or 36.2 percent, were hired on a short-term, unstable employment status.
The non-regular employment issue has been hitting headlines of newspapers since President Moon Jae-in took office on May 10. He has vowed to remove all irregular jobs in the public sector during his five-year term as part of his signature job creation campaign.
Moon's first executive order, signed only hours after his inauguration, was to set up a new presidential committee on jobs, highlighting the president's emphasis on improved job security and creation of new positions.
He also promised to create 810,000 public jobs in the coming five years.
Reflecting the president's stance, Incheon International Airport Corp., a key public enterprise, announced a plan last week to make its 10,000 part-time workers full-time employees. (Yonhap)