Training Costs More Than 100 Million Won

Large companies spend more than 100 million won on average in training a newcomer before he or she joins a business in earnest, and the training period is two and a half years on average according to a report.

On May 8, the Korea Employers Federation (KEF) released a report on “the situation of college graduate training” of 536 corporations that have more than 100 employees.

According to the report, on average, it takes 20.3 months of training, including probationary period and OJT (On the Job Training), before newcomers start to work as regular workers.

The manufacturing sector (18.6 months) took less time than the non-manufacturing sector (24.2 months). And the training period of large corporations (more than 300 employees) was 29.6 months, which was more than one year longer than the 16.1 months of SMEs.

The overall costs during the training period, including training costs, wages, insurance benefits, amount to 62,184,000 won per newcomer. Large corporations (106,799,000 won) spent much more than SMEs (39,194,000 won).

The KEF explained that large corporations spend much not only in training itself, but also in wages.

The federation added that the training costs, which do not include wage and insurance benefits, are estimated at 12 million won per person for large corporations, and five million to six million of SMEs, annually.

In addition, the overall university graduate training costs by corporations was estimated at 8.22 trillion won.

With regard to job performance of college graduates, 48.4 percent replied, “somewhat satisfied,” while 25.9 percent replied “satisfied,” and 25.3 percent replied “dissatisfied.”

A total of 39.4 percent of those who replied “dissatisfied” said that college education fails to meet the needs of corporations.

Sang-Soo Kim ssoo@donga.com