Labor ministry announces KT AI agreement for staff training

The labor ministry said Tuesday that Hanguk Saneop Inryeok Gongdan signed an agreement with KT to develop employees' practical artificial-intelligence skills, saying basic AI literacy alone would not support a successful transition to AI-based operations.

The agreement was signed at the agency's headquarters in Ulsan's Jung district. The agency's executive director for planning and operations and the head of KT's eastern corporate customer headquarters attended. It calls for phased cooperation under a medium- and long-term roadmap for AI capacity building. Under the plan, the public agency's staff will progress from introductory AI literacy to practical skills applicable to their jobs.

The agreement includes cooperation on AICE, or AI Certificate for Everyone, an artificial-intelligence competency examination jointly developed and operated by KT and the Korea Economic Daily. It assesses problem-solving ability through data analysis and AI modeling. The partners plan job-specific training and a full-cycle system from AI education and certification through application at work. KT will provide AI education infrastructure and join the agency in identifying and applying AI-based workplace innovation projects.

"We expect this memorandum of understanding to strengthen our employees' AI capabilities," Lee Byeong-hun, chairman of the service, said. "The service will achieve public-service innovation that people can experience through systematic organisational capacity-building."

The service will survey all employees on demand for AICE training courses and support employees taking the examination in line with annual targets in its roadmap for AI capacity building.