Lee Sang-il, Mayor of Yongin, "MZ Public Officials Leaving Due to Frozen Standard Workforce and Labor Costs"

Letter to Minister of the Interior and Safety Sang-min Lee
"Adjustment Needed in Proportion to Population and Administrative Demand"

Lee Sang-il, mayor of Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province, expressed the view that to prevent the continuous departure of MZ generation public officials, the standard workforce and labor costs should be applied flexibly according to population and administrative demand.

On the 16th, Mayor Lee conveyed in a letter to Lee Sang-min, Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, that in order to appropriately respond to the rapidly increasing administrative demand in Yongin due to national projects and delegated special affairs, the standard workforce and labor costs set by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety for local governments should be adjusted proportionally to population and administrative demand.

Sang-il Lee, Mayor of Yongin

In the letter, Mayor Lee stated, "Yongin City is experiencing an overwhelming administrative workload due to large-scale projects such as the semiconductor national industrial complex and the semiconductor-specialized new town development, but with the freezing of the standard workforce, the number of residents per public official is the highest in the province at 333 per official," adding, "Employees are complaining about the urgent need to resolve the heavy workload."

Mayor Lee explained that although Yongin City's area is 4.9 times that of Suwon City and 4.2 times that of Seongnam City, its population is similar, resulting in lower standard workforce and labor costs being set, which causes difficulties in increasing personnel. He added, "Recently, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's policy to freeze the standard workforce has led to a freeze in public official staffing, causing severe personnel stagnation in the city, so the government's plan to shorten the promotion period for public officials is not effective for Yongin City."

Earlier, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Personnel Management announced measures to shorten the promotion period for 'high-performing' public officials to prevent the departure of MZ generation public officials. However, since the freeze on staffing cannot resolve personnel stagnation, in local governments like Yongin where administrative demand is rapidly increasing, even promotions for MZ generation public officials are realistically difficult, according to Mayor Lee.

For this reason, Mayor Lee emphasized that in rapidly growing cities, public official personnel management should be flexible to meet the increasing administrative demand.