New Faces for the First Time in 10 Years

“How do you do, seniors!”

On February 2 at the factory of SK Incheon Oil in Wonchang-dong, Seogu, Incheon, the voices of 10 newly employed staff members roared.

More older staff members were busy explaining the oil-processing steps to the fresh faces of their juniors. But the faces of the veteran staff members dealing with the novices never stopped smiling. They were the “welcome juniors” who were employed through a public hiring push held by SK Incheon Oil for the first time in the last decade.

After a lost decade, the number of employees was cut to half-

SK Incheon Oil was a blue chip company that represented Incheon, but has had a difficult time since 1997 when it was unable to employ new workers from that year until now.

The mother company of SK Incheon Oil is Gyeong-in Energy, which was established by a joint investment from Hanwha Group and Union Oil, a U.S. based oil company, in 1969. Hanwha Group underwrote the shares of Union Oil in 1983 and changed the name of the company to Hanwha Energy.

It acted as the cash cow of Hanwha Group but was unable to succeed in the period during and following the peak of the foreign exchange crisis.

In the end, the enterprise was sold to Hyundai Group in 1999 in one of the “enterprise big deals” (the exchange of business fields between enterprise groups), which was promoted during the Kim Dae-jung administration when Hyundai Oil Bank underwrote 3 trillion won in Hanwha Energy debt. The name of the firm was then changed to Incheon Oil.

Misfortune did not end here. In a situation of confusion caused by the so-called “Dispute of Princes” in the Hyundai Group in 2000 and the death of Chung Ju-young, the founder of Hyundai, in 2001, Incheon Oil was no different from an abandoned child in the entire Hyundai Group. Then came the vicious tides of the enormous exchange losses and the surcharges imposed by the Fair Trade Commission.

The firm’s workers were unable to avoid the blows of restructuring. More than 1,000 were employed by the firm at the end of 1990s, but by the time the enterprise became incorporated under the SK Group last year, the number fell to slightly above 490. Hiring through public employment, an annual event of other enterprises, was an extravagant luxury to this enterprise.

Hoping for new energy-

The depression was prolonged in the oil industry and the enterprise was pushed to the verge of collapse when it began liquidation procedures in 2001. But it won attentions again after being helped by the “China-effect” in 2003 and transformed itself into SK Incheon Oil after it was incorporated into the SK Group.

Instead of restructuring SK Incheon Oil, the SK Group annexed it to its list of companies for public recruitment. The decision was made to inject the enterprise with new energy.

At the news of the public hiring, which was the first in the past decade, the staff of SK Incheon Oil was excited, and heavy hearted at the same time.

“There were no staff members employed through public hiring under the director-rank since 1997,” says Director Kim Myeong-gi, who is in charge of the on-site education of the new employees. “Looking at the new staff, I’m sometimes reminded of the faces of my coworkers who had to leave the company in times of crisis.”

Choi Gwang-su (27), a new employee, says, “I’m still a new face here, but I’ll make efforts to learn the work and help the company make another leap.”

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