196 New Civil Service Posts Announced

While the high-ranking official system will take effect beginning July 1, 162 new posts will be open to competition from all civil servants. The number of posts open to civil experts has increased by 36 to 162.

As the Civil Service Commission established 358 high-ranking posts which will be chosen through open recruitment as above on June 26, the wave of openness and competition in the public community is expected to become fierce.

The newly designated posts include a head of university innovation in the Ministry of Education & Human Resources Development, a director of finance policy in the Ministry of Finance and Economy, a head of balanced national development in the Ministry of Construction and Transportation and a head of national pension policy in the Ministry of Health and Welfare, all of which have a lot of relevance with other ministries.

The newly added 36 posts consist of a director-general of international finance in the Ministry of Finance and Economy, a director-general of finance, economy and finance in the Office of Government Policy Coordination, a private and public investment planner in the Ministry of Planning and Budget, a customer service head in the Fair Trade Commission and a full-time talks representative in the Ministry of National Unification which have an abundant pool of private experts.

This move has come out after all government ministries assigned less than 20% of high-ranking officials to be chosen from open competition, and less than 30% of them to be selected through open recruitment.

As for open posts, more than half of the members of a Select Committee should consist of nongovernmental members, and a committee chairman also should come from the nongovernmental members to ensure fairness. As for open-recruitment posts, the Select Committee should be composed of civil servants from other ministries and non-governmental members.

Meanwhile, if appointed to open posts and open-recruitment posts, two years of tenure will be guaranteed for stable performance of duty. In addition, tenure of the open-recruitment posts will be extended up to five years after consultation with the minister in charge if work performances are successful.

gaea@donga.com