Labor ministry honors 73 local governments for jobs programs

The labor ministry on Wednesday honored 73 local governments at the 2026 National Local Government Jobs Awards for efforts to create jobs, improve job quality and strengthen regional labor markets.

The government has operated its local jobs disclosure system since 2012, requiring local governments to publish job-creation targets and policies. The awards assess and share the results of those efforts.

Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City, formerly Gwangju Metropolitan City, received the president's comprehensive grand prize. Gyeongsangnam Province and Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, received the prime minister's category prizes for metropolitan and basic local governments, respectively.

The grand-prize winner created 81,000 jobs under five priorities: industrial transition, job creation, tailored support, job-quality improvements and crisis response. It fostered strategic industries including AI, future vehicles and energy, and established an employment safety net after a fire at Kumho Tire's Gwangju plant. The city's 10 a.m. start-time program for parents of elementary-school children, parental-leave coverage allowance, integrated-care program and breakfast support for industrial-park workers were adopted and expanded as central government policies.

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon said jobs are a major reason skilled local talent moves to the capital region. "To overcome the crisis of regional extinction and build self-sustaining local labor markets, local governments must focus not only on increasing the number of jobs but also on improving their quality," he said.

Gyeongsangnam Province reached a record employment rate of 69.9 percent among people aged 15 to 64 after providing jobs support tailored to shipbuilding, aerospace, auto-parts and steel industries and linking talent development with companies and universities. Its workforce program connected students from high school through employment and local settlement. Cheonan built a jobs big-data platform, described as South Korea's first, to manage and disclose employment indicators and program results. It developed three new jobs programs by linking public feedback with the data and reached a record 490,000 employed people.