[Opinion] A Career Change Support Program

U.S.-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing began a retraining program after it announced its plan to dismiss about 16,000 out of over 30,000 employees in 1993. Thanks to the program, most of the laid-off workers found new jobs.

The retraining project involved federal and local governments and civic groups, in addition to employees and the corporation itself. The U.S. army, which discharged more than 210,000 servicemen and women in the seven years after the cold war, provided the retired military personnel with retraining programs and consultations for launching businesses with the help of 286 professional job counselors at 55 information centers.

Korea has witnessed a dramatic increase of workers displaced by corporate restructuring since the 1997 financial crisis. The number jumped from 610,000 in 1998 to 1,250,000 in 2005. Most of them want to be rehired, which often ends up as wishful thinking on their part. These days, no one can expect the good old days when people were admitted into companies by simply filling in stationary resume forms. A report has it that a mere 16 percent of 360,000 career changers in the financial business field landed new jobs in the five years following the economic meltdown. The reason: the lack of a systematic retraining program.

Career change assistance service firm JM Career said that 12,000 people took its career change courses and 67 percent landed new jobs or started new businesses since its foundation in 2001. JM Career President Yoon Jong-mahn said, “Workers dismissed after over 15 years of employment at a company can overcome a sense of being defeated in the first two weeks and restore emotional stability.” They then discover their core competence through self-analysis, learn many things, including how to write essays, and try to start afresh.

However, there exists a gap between haves and have-nots. Yoon pointed out that those eligible for job retraining services are mostly from large companies or public corporations. Though the government ambitiously launched a career change assistance program in 2001, former SME workers have not benefited from it because of its strict criteria. The assistance also stopped at 1.5 billion won last year. In Belgium, retraining support programs are mandatory for workers over 45. Now is the time that Korea, if not matching the Belgian level, should step up its effort to help displaced workers in one way or another.

Hong Kwon-hee, Editorial Writer, konihong@donga.com