Government not Paying Attention to Employment of Disabled

Most government offices and conglomerates are reported not to abide by the law on employment of the physically challenged people.

According to a report submitted on Oct. 3 by the Ministry of labor and the Korea Employment Promotion Agency for the Disabled to Rep. Kim Hong-sin of the Grand National Party for parliamentary inspection of the government offices, the disabled hired by the government and local governments account for 1.61 percent of the total employees, conglomerates for 1.10 percent. These figures are far short of minimum required percentage of three percent, which is stated in the law for government offices and companies with more than 300 employees.

The report shows that the police filled 0.25 percent of its workforce with the disabled on average from 1999 to last year, followed by the National Election Commission (0.31%), the Public Prosecutor’s Office (0.36%), the Fair Trade Commission (0.42%), and the Ministry of National Defense (0.43%). In other words, so-called government offices with “power” have been passive in employment of the disabled.

Since 1991, when mandatory employment of the disabled took effect, employment of the handicapped by government agencies has increased to 1.61 percent from 0.66 percent. During the same period, the rate rose from 0.39 percent to 1.10 percent for companies.

Companies’ employment of the disabled rose because if they fail to hire the quotas they should pay penalties. The money businesses paid in this way for the past 11 years reaches 698.695 million won.

However, the central government and local governments are exempted from the penalties according to the special exemption clause in the law.

Rep. Kim Hong-sin pointed out that the government should abolish the clause to make government offices more aggressively join in the efforts to hire the disabled.

Sang-Keun Song songmoon@donga.com