Gwangju City Strengthens Transparency in Hiring Public Officials... Written Exams to Be Introduced from Next Year

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] The Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 26th that it has revised the "Gwangju Metropolitan City Public Service and Fixed-term Worker Management Regulations" (directive) as of the 30th of last month to further strengthen the fairness and transparency of the public service recruitment process, and will implement it starting January 1st next year.

Public service workers refer to regular employees engaged in field work such as administrative assistants, simple laborers, road maintenance workers, and environmental cleaners at the city headquarters, affiliated institutions, and business offices, who have signed employment contracts with the city without a fixed term.

Fixed-term workers are employees who have signed employment contracts with the city for a fixed period, hired as replacement personnel due to vacancies caused by employee leave, dispatch, etc.

Until now, Gwangju has selected public service workers through document screening and interviews, but starting next year, most job categories such as administrative assistants will be hired through written exams. The exam subject is general knowledge, and the exam is held twice a year (first and second half). The recruitment schedule will be posted on the city’s website at the beginning of the year.

However, some job categories among public service workers, such as road maintenance workers, environmental cleaners, building cleaners, and cooking managers, will not have written exams.

Additionally, the recruitment method will change from the current individual department recruitment to an integrated recruitment method by the General Affairs Division. Previously, when vacancies occurred, each department recruited as needed, causing inconvenience for general citizens who had to frequently check the city website for recruitment information.

Starting next year, each department will submit an annual recruitment plan to the General Affairs Division, which will establish a comprehensive recruitment plan based on this and announce recruitment exams through an integrated recruitment method, making it easier to access recruitment information for all departments and institutions.

Gwangju plans to enhance the fairness of the public service recruitment process through the implementation of this partial revision of the regulations, increase trust in the public service exams, and move in a direction that meets the expectations of citizens demanding fair recruitment.

Lee Don-guk, head of the city’s General Affairs Division, said, “We expect that the revision of the management regulations will make the public service recruitment process more transparent and strengthen its reliability.”