Seongdong-gu Begins Payment of Essential Worker Allowances (200,000 · 300,000 KRW) for Caregivers and Others

Caregivers, Disabled Activity Support Workers, and Village Bus Drivers Receive First Essential Worker Allowance This Year
Three-Year Roadmap Announced, 'Working Citizens' Team Formed, and Multifaceted Efforts to Support Essential Workers

Seongdong-gu, Seoul (Mayor Jung Won-oh) announced that it will provide the first essential worker allowance of the year to essential workers who play a crucial role in maintaining social functions ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. This includes care workers, disability activity supporters, and village bus drivers.

The essential worker allowance is given to essential workers engaged in fields necessary for social maintenance, particularly those with relatively inadequate wage systems, low average wages, and those in sectors with significant public service characteristics such as care workers, disability activity supporters, and village bus drivers.

The payment amounts are 200,000 KRW once a year for care workers and disability activity supporters, and 300,000 KRW once a month for village bus drivers.

In particular, the payment of the essential worker allowance to village bus drivers is expected to help improve transportation convenience for residents. Village buses mainly operate on steep slopes or narrow roads where metropolitan transportation networks such as subways or city buses do not reach, requiring skilled driving techniques. However, low wages, social perception, and unstable employment conditions have increased driver turnover rates, causing reduced bus operations and extended intervals between buses, which have led to transportation inconveniences for residents. This allowance payment is expected to improve the treatment of village bus drivers and greatly contribute to stable village bus operations.

Seongdong-gu has taken the lead in promoting practical and concrete policies for essential workers, including defining the concept of essential workers for the first time nationwide and establishing institutional foundations for their protection and support.

In 2020, when the spread of COVID-19 was increasing, workers who performed face-to-face tasks risking infection to maintain the normal functioning of society were named "essential workers," and Seongdong-gu, Seoul, became the first in the nation to enact the Essential Worker Protection and Support Ordinance. This ordinance gained significant social consensus and was legislated into the Essential Worker Protection Act within a year of its enactment.

Additionally, based on the recognition that improving treatment and working conditions for essential workers is necessary to ensure stable social functions even during sudden disasters, Seongdong-gu conducted the nation's first "Seongdong-gu Essential Worker Wage Survey and Wage System Reform Study" last year.

The survey results showed that among essential maintenance job categories necessary for social function, some had no wage system, low wage levels, and wage disparities depending on the type of workplace operation even within the same job category, indicating a need for employment stability for vulnerable workers.

Based on this, in November of the same year, Seongdong-gu announced a "Three-Year Roadmap for Essential Worker Support Policies" aimed at improving the quality of life for residents through better treatment and working conditions for essential workers.

The three-year roadmap includes measures such as ▲support for low-income essential worker occupations and social safety net support ▲preparing wage guidelines to create conditions for "equal pay for equal work" by job category. In the future, support for essential worker allowances, partial support for social insurance premiums for low-income essential workers, and expansion of living wage application to essential workers in private consignment institutions will also be considered.

Moreover, through an organizational restructuring effective January 1 this year, Seongdong-gu formed the Working Citizens Team, the first team nationwide dedicated to essential worker support policies. The Working Citizens Team will promote projects to enhance the rights and interests of "working citizens" in the region, including ▲operation of the Seongdong Worker Welfare Center ▲operation of the Seongdong Essential and Platform Workers’ Shelter ▲management of labor unions and protection of emotional labor workers. Going forward, the team plans to respond flexibly and proactively to the increasingly diverse labor forms such as platform workers, special employment workers, freelancers, and one-person entrepreneurs.

Jung Won-oh, Mayor of Seongdong-gu, stated, "Supporting essential workers who work under vulnerable conditions is an essential measure to maintain social functions stably. We will continue to make multifaceted efforts to improve the rights and interests of essential workers and working citizens."