Four Years After Introducing the Nation's First Employment Inspector... Dobong-gu, 355 Fair Hires

Dobong-gu Appoints New Employment Inspectors to Continue Fair and Transparent Hiring... Five Selected Including Lawyers with Relevant Experience for a 2-Year Term... District Introduced Korea's First Employment Inspector System in 2019, Achieving Fair Hiring of 355 People

In 2019, Dobong-gu became the first district in the nation to introduce the Employment Inspector System, which involves monitoring the hiring process at public institutions to prevent corruption. To fundamentally eliminate controversies surrounding personnel recruitment, 303 monitoring sessions were conducted by employment inspectors over four years from 2020 to 2023, resulting in the fair hiring of a total of 355 talented individuals.

To continue fostering a transparent hiring culture, Dobong-gu appointed five new employment inspectors on January 3rd. This new appointment was made following the expiration of the previous inspectors' terms on December 31, 2023.

The term for the newly appointed employment inspectors runs from January 1, 2024, to December 31, 2025. Over these two years, they will directly participate in the recruitment processes of all departments and affiliated organizations of Dobong-gu (including fixed-term public officials and public employees), observing all stages such as document screening and interviews.

Their main responsibilities include ▲ensuring that the document and interview evaluation committees are properly formed according to the recruitment plan ▲verifying that recruitment announcements comply with relevant regulations ▲confirming that the recruitment plan and announcements are properly implemented ▲monitoring the fairness of evaluation criteria, methods, and scoring ▲and overseeing other matters related to the fairness and appropriateness of the hiring process. After verifying all these aspects, they submit a report to the district’s Audit Officer.

Additionally, if improvements to the hiring system are needed, they recommend changes to the district mayor and have the authority to request audits if any misconduct occurs during the recruitment process.

Oh Eon-seok, Mayor of Dobong-gu, stated, “The Employment Inspector System, introduced here first nationwide, plays a significant role in enhancing fairness and transparency in the hiring process. We will continue to maintain a fair and transparent talent recruitment culture through the operation of this system.”

In the past, some affiliated organizations in other local governments faced controversies for evaluating candidates based on criteria outside the official evaluation items during recruitment. To proactively prevent such issues in Dobong-gu, the district enacted the “Ordinance on the Establishment and Operation of Employment Inspectors in Dobong-gu, Seoul” and implemented the Employment Inspector System for the first time nationwide.

Alongside the system’s implementation, routine audits conducted by the Audit Officer to preliminarily review the appropriateness of recruitment plans were expanded. This created a system that inspects the entire hiring process’s appropriateness in conjunction with the inspectors’ monitoring. From the first year of implementation through last year, 147 routine audits in the recruitment field and 303 monitoring sessions by employment inspectors were conducted, resulting in the hiring of 355 talented individuals.