Daejeon City "Improving Welfare Workers' Treatment... Realizing Basic Salary and Expanding Meal Allowances"

Daejeon City announced on the 17th that it will take practical measures to improve the treatment of workers at local social welfare facilities through the implementation of the "4th Social Welfare Worker Treatment Improvement Promotion Plan (2024-2026)."

The promotion plan is based on four major strategies: ▲establishing a Daejeon-type wage system ▲improving internal allowances ▲enhancing working conditions ▲strengthening capabilities and elevating status, and will be executed through 10 key tasks and 21 projects.

This year, Daejeon City has allocated a budget of 205.8 billion KRW for improving the treatment of social welfare workers, a 3% increase compared to the previous year. The increased budget will be used for improving the treatment of social welfare workers and rational restructuring of the wage system.

First, starting this year, Daejeon City plans to focus on raising the basic salary of workers to fundamentally improve the level of compensation, aiming to raise the basic salary to 100% (95% for some facilities) of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s recommended labor costs by 2026. The core idea is to increase the basic salary annually: 90% of the recommended standard this year, 95% next year, and 100% by 2026. Currently, the minimum average basic salary by facility type remains at 77%.

In addition to raising the basic salary, the promotion plan includes improving the allowance system, which varies by facility, to prevent wage disparities between facilities caused by differences in allowances.

Furthermore, by 2026, holiday allowances will be standardized at 120% of the basic salary for all facilities, and overtime allowances will be expanded up to a maximum of 10 hours per month for workers without recognized overtime hours. Also, family allowances and fixed meal allowances (50,000 KRW per month), currently applied only in some facilities, will be extended to all facilities.

Besides improving labor costs such as basic salary increases this year, Daejeon City will newly establish a comprehensive health checkup expense, providing 200,000 KRW every two years, and expand leave systems to support work-family balance. Support will also be extended to 4,161 workers at 588 social welfare organizations and centers, which had been excluded from previous treatment improvement efforts.

Min Dong-hee, Director of the Welfare Bureau of Daejeon City, said, “We will strive to implement the promotion plan to improve working conditions in the local social welfare field and to qualitatively enhance services for welfare recipients.”