Labor ministry expands regional worker-education councils to nine areas

South Korea's labor ministry said Wednesday that nine regional worker-education councils are now operating across the country, as it pushes a plan to align training with the demands of local labor markets.

The Korea Employment and Labor Education Institute, the public body that runs the program, will hold the seventh of those meetings in Busan on Thursday, run with the city's labor-management-government council and its labor education task force.

The institute recruited the 17 metropolitan and provincial labor-management-government councils nationwide, and nine signed on this year. Busan follows meetings in South Jeolla and Gwangju on Aug. 25 and Sept. 10, South Chungcheong on Sept. 16, Gyeonggi on Sept. 17, Gangwon on Sept. 22 and Jeju on Sept. 29. Sejong and South Gyeongsang are scheduled for Oct. 20 and Oct. 29.

The councils bring together between eight and 15 members: the provincial government, the regional labor office, the provincial education office, local branches of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korea Employers Federation, chambers of commerce, university professors in labor studies, and groups representing women, young people and migrants. Their remit covers setting the direction of regional labor education, surveying training demand, matching instructors and budgets to programs, and proposing policy.

Labor relations officials from Busan's unions and employers, the city government and the Busan regional employment and labor office will attend Thursday's meeting to review the current state of local labor education and the demand coming from workplaces.

"We will tightly weave the labor education network so that 'Employment and Labor Education 2.0' leads to real change on the ground in the region, together with the Busan labor-management-government council, and contribute to building a society that respects labor," said Lee Jong-sun, president of the Korea Employment and Labor Education Institute.

The institute's plan centers on four tasks: expanding labor education across a worker's whole career, strengthening the core capacity of labor and management for social dialogue, training employment and labor administration specialists, and building the institute into a national hub for labor education. The Ministry of Employment and Labor said the program will develop training content tailored to different life stages, support the training of specialists and the operation of courses, and help good practices found in one region spread to others, with regions deciding for themselves what training they need.