"Ghost Interns with Nothing to Do: Why Take the Job?"... 200 Young Interns Quit Midway

Among 1,237 Youth Interns, 200 Quit Midway
No Authority for Official Document Access, So No Tasks Assigned
Both Officials and Youth Interns Dissatisfied
"Just Studying for Exams with Tax Money, Then Going Home"

Reference photo to aid understanding of the article. [Photo by Pixabay]

One in six young interns hired by government central ministries last year quit mid-term, raising concerns that the system is being poorly managed.

According to data received by Ahn Do-gul, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, among the 1,237 young interns (cumulative) hired by various ministries last year, 200 (16.2%) left before completing their planned term (3 to 6 months).

The ministry with the highest mid-term resignation rate was the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, where 25 out of 82 young interns (30%) quit during their term. This was followed by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (29.9%), the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (25.8%), and the Ministry of National Defense (25%). As of the first half of this year, 327 out of 2,220 young interns (14.7%) resigned mid-term.

The young intern system in central administrative agencies provides non-civil servant youths with the opportunity to work as short-term interns for up to six months in government ministries. It is a flagship youth policy of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. However, the system is facing difficulties as it is being implemented in ways that deviate from its original purpose, resulting in many interns quitting early.

Critics point out that a major problem is the difficulty in granting young interns the authority necessary for essential civil servant tasks such as reading and submitting official documents, and the challenge of finding tasks for them due to security concerns. As a result, most supervisors managing young interns are in a difficult position. It is common for interns to be left idle and told to study on their own because there is no work to assign. Since interns gain little during their internship period, turning it into a "pseudo-experience," dissatisfaction among young interns is high. As the young intern system is being implemented in ways that do not align with its intended purpose, there are calls for urgent improvements to both the internship system and the working environment.