National Assembly Legislative Office: "Part-time Public Officials' Restrictions and Allowance Regulations Should Be Improved"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] There have been calls for improvements in the treatment of part-time public officials, including diversifying their working hour types, allowing them to choose autonomously, and rationally revising the allowance regulations.

On the 22nd, the National Assembly Legislative Research Office stated in its report titled "Current Status and Improvement Tasks of Part-Time Public Officials," "We hope that the part-time public official system will be operated rationally and transparently to establish itself as a quality job," emphasizing the need for such improvements.

Part-time public officials are those who work shorter hours than the usual working hours of public officials. When the part-time public official system was introduced in 2014, a long-term hiring target ratio was set to have 6% of national public officials and 9% of local public officials as part-time public officials. However, since 2018, the scale of hiring has been drastically reduced, and currently, almost no new hires are being made.

The Legislative Research Office pointed out various issues, including restrictions on the choice of working hours for part-time public officials, disadvantages due to fractional quota management in the organizational system, and allowance regulations that do not sufficiently consider the characteristics of part-time public officials.

Park Young-won and Lim Jun-bae, legislative researchers from the Political and Administrative Research Office’s Administration and Safety Team who conducted the study, noted, "In principle, the authority to choose working hours lies with the head of the institution. While the personal circumstances of part-time public officials can be considered, it is currently impossible for them to choose their working hours," highlighting the problem.

They explained, "The recruitment announcements for part-time public officials provide the expected appointment grade (job category), the name of the appointing institution, the expected department of work, and the working type, but the working hours are not specified concretely and are only indicated as half-day work or alternate-day work, making it difficult for applicants to recognize the exact working hours when applying." They added, "The 'Public Officials Appointment Decree' and the 'Public Officials Appointment Rules' stipulate that the weekly working hours of part-time public officials should be set between 15 and 35 hours by the appointing authority or the recommending authority."

They also criticized the organizational system’s practice of calculating the quotas for part-time public officials in fractional units and representing them as such. According to the 'National Public Officials Act,' a 'position' refers to the duties and responsibilities assigned to one public official, and it is inappropriate to express one duty in fractional units proportional to working hours. Moreover, with the introduction of fractional quotas, there have been cases where part-time public officials face discrimination by not receiving work equipment such as personal computers and desks based on the quota, and cases where promotions are restricted due to the absence of vacancies for part-time public officials in higher ranks within the same department.

They also pointed out the need to review whether the uniform allowance regulations applying the principle of proportionality to working hours are appropriate.

To improve these issues, they emphasized the need to ▲ design various working hour types so that part-time public officials can autonomously choose their working hours, ▲ separate quotas in the organizational system as whole numbers and separately indicate the quotas for part-time public officials for each rank, and ▲ review rational improvement measures for fixed meal allowances, rank allowances, holiday bonuses, annual leave compensation, and overtime pay, which have the nature of actual expense reimbursement.

The National Union of Public Officials issued a statement on the same day urging, "We call on the relevant ministries to listen carefully to the issues pointed out in this report and actively work to improve the part-time public official system and address operational shortcomings in the field as soon as possible."