Revitalizing Geoje Shipbuilding... Newly Designated as Employment Crisis Area

Annual Support of Approximately 33 Billion Won for Employers and Workers

The Job Policy Division of Gyeongsangnam-do is announcing the new designation of Geoje City as an employment crisis area by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Seryeong] Geoje City in Gyeongnam has once again been designated as an employment crisis area.

On the 19th, Gyeongnam Province announced that Geoje City has been newly designated as an employment crisis area, and support such as regional employment promotion and employment support measures will be provided to business owners and workers in the area for one year starting next year.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor designates areas as employment crisis areas where employment conditions have significantly deteriorated or a rapid decrease in employment is expected.

According to the province, Geoje City, Jinhae-gu in Changwon City, Tongyeong City, and Goseong County were designated in April 2018 due to the crisis in the shipbuilding industry and the designation has been extended four times until this year.

Although shipbuilding orders have recently increased in the four cities/counties, employment conditions have not recovered, and due to a lack of drivers for regional economic revitalization, the outflow of economically active population continues. Therefore, they applied to the province in October for a re-extension of the employment crisis area designation.

Gyeongnam Province explained that it held a review by the Gyeongnam Labor-Management-Civil-Government Council, applied to the Ministry of Employment and Labor for an extension of the designation period, held meetings and policy consultations among the province, cities/counties, and related organizations, and directly requested the Minister of Employment and Labor through the governor.

They also visited local lawmakers including National Assembly member Seo Il-jun to emphasize the necessity of extending the employment crisis area designation.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Employment and Labor decided to terminate the designation of existing employment crisis areas and newly designate Geoje City after deliberation by the Employment Policy Council.

The re-extension for the other three areas, which lacked quantitative conditions, was not approved.

A provincial official said, “The designation period for seven employment crisis areas nationwide will end at the end of this year, and Geoje City is the only area newly designated,” adding, “With this designation, about 33 billion KRW will be supported annually to business owners and workers in the Geoje area.”

The province plans to promote projects to mitigate the shock of stopping financial support in areas where the employment crisis designation ends and to support a soft landing from the employment crisis.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor will promote a shipbuilding support public offering project worth 41.8 billion KRW through the regional job plus project and employment crisis response support project.

In line with this, the province plans to discover customized job projects and prepare projects for job placement support and income compensation to apply for the public offering.

To respond to the employment crisis, the province and cities/counties will jointly invest 11.9 billion KRW in five projects: the shipbuilding new employment relocation settlement support project, Gyeongnam youth talent-main industry co-growth job project, main industry win-win hope mutual aid project, New Middle-aged Tomorrow Connection 50+ project, and joint labor welfare fund financial support project, and will expand the scale of these projects.

They will also support three shipbuilding-related projects: regional shipbuilding production workforce training project, shipbuilding win-win cooperation special fund support project, and ammonia mixed combustion fuel propulsion system ship regulatory free zone.

Kim Heeyong, Director of the Economic Enterprise Bureau, said, “So far, with the designation of employment crisis areas, government support has gradually led to employment stability and regional economic recovery,” and added, “We will do our best to ensure that these achievements lead to practical employment stability and regional economic revitalization.”