Difficulties in Department Placement for Part-Time Public Officials Working 35 Hours a Week... Support for Expanding to 40 Hours Due to Workload Burden on Substitute Workers Covering 5-Hour Gap
[Asia Economy Reporter Jong-il Park] Next month marks the 10th year since the legal introduction of general position part-time public officials, but it has been revealed that the resignation rate in local governments reaches 40%.
This fact was disclosed by the National Part-Time Public Officials Labor Union (Chairperson Seonghye Jeong), which conducted a survey on the status of general position part-time public officials introduced during the Park Geun-hye administration and the difficulties faced by personnel departments in operating part-time public officials at 243 local government institutions nationwide starting from September 21.
Part-time public officials were introduced as general position public officials working shorter hours, promoted through a press release titled “Proper Part-Time Jobs, Government Leading by Example” distributed by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (then Ministry of Security and Public Administration) on September 17, 2013, and this year marks the 10th anniversary of their introduction.
In 2021, Lee Hae-sik, a member of the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, received operational status data on part-time public officials from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which showed that the top request from local governments was to convert to a 40-hour workweek (full-time conversion).
Accordingly, the Part-Time Public Officials Union collected opinions from local governments on the status of part-time public officials and on increasing their weekly working hours from 15 to 40 hours, including support and opposition. As of the 18th, among 180 local governments that responded, 79 (43.9%) expressed support, and 37 (20.6%) stated they would implement according to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s guidelines.
Local governments also requested an expansion of the possible duties for part-time public officials, which on the ground indicates difficulty in finding suitable tasks due to a 5-hour weekly work time difference.
Personnel departments of local governments that supported increasing the weekly working hours of part-time public officials from 15 to 40 hours cited reasons such as “operational difficulties in department assignments with a 35-hour workweek and the workload burden on substitute workers due to a 5-hour gap, making it necessary to increase to 40 hours per week.”
This survey targeted personnel departments of local governments. Local part-time public officials are appointed through the same open competitive examination as full-time officials and perform the same duties and working hours on site as full-time officials. However, current laws limit their maximum working hours to 35 hours per week, which has led to a resignation rate approaching 40%, proving that this is a “failed low-quality job.”
The Part-Time Public Officials Union plans to conduct a survey targeting personnel departments of central administrative agencies in November and announce the results in December.
Chairperson Seonghye Jeong stated, “December 2022 marks the 10th year since the legal introduction of general position part-time public officials. With a 40% resignation rate in local governments, the government must acknowledge this as a failed policy and hold a public hearing to bring together personnel officers from each institution and part-time public officials to decide whether to abolish this system or, if not, how to operate it going forward. Measures are needed.”
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