Labor ministry invites 21 South Asian officials for youth employment training

South Korea's labor ministry said Monday that the Korea Labor Foundation will bring 21 government officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives to Seoul this week for a five-day training program on public employment services and youth job support.

The program, running from Monday through Friday at the M Gallery in Seoul, is part of a five-country project the Asian Development Bank is backing to strengthen public employment services in South Asia and help young people move from education and vocational training into the labor market.

The invitation follows a first session held from Sept. 14 to 18 for 10 officials from Sri Lanka's Department of Manpower and Employment, which helped Sri Lanka identify five priority policy tasks, including fragmented labor market information, a shortage of specialist staff, a mismatch between training and the demands of employers, limited access to career guidance and weak tracking of employment outcomes.

This second session brings the three countries together for joint training, with participants comparing their own employment service systems and policy challenges. Much of the curriculum is built around how Korea's own system works: the division of responsibilities between central and regional offices, the labor market information system, and the building and running of the digital employment platform Employment 24. The agenda also covers AI-based employment services, the use of labor administration statistics, and efforts to connect vocational education and training with employment services, along with policies that help young people plan careers and move from school into work.

Participants will visit the career and employment support center to see how the university helps students plan careers and prepare for work. They will also tour the Seoul Northern Employment Welfare Plus Center, where they will follow how local job counseling, placement and training referrals reach jobseekers.

On the final day, the delegations will draw on their discussions to draft action plans setting out each country's priority policy tasks and the direction they intend to take. The foundation plans to join stakeholder workshops in South Asia next year, where the findings from the diagnosis, the Seoul training and the action plans will be reviewed with governments, employment agencies and training institutions to shape national policy roadmaps.

"The results of public employment services do not stop at having good systems in place; they lie in making sure young people and jobseekers actually receive the support they need on the ground," Park Jong-pil, secretary-general of the Korea Labor Foundation, said, adding that the foundation will keep working closely with the ADB and the participating governments so that what is learned in Seoul feeds into policy improvements and practical youth employment support in the region.