Seoul City's temporary workers to get regular status

Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) announced Thursday that it will make 1,054 non-permanent contract workers regular employees from May 1. It currently has a total of 2,916 non-regular employees.

SMG will allocate 6.2 billion won to pay the increased salary costs for this year.

The change is one of Mayor Park Won-soon’s three key welfare policies, along with free school meal programs and lower college tuition.

“This will be the first step toward a world of common sense where non-regular employees doing the same work as regular workers will not be discriminated against with regard to wages and other working conditions. People who are capable will not be fired only because they are temporary employees,” Park said in a briefing.

The beneficiaries are those engaged in jobs which will continue for at least the next two years or more. For such positions, the city will not recruit non-regular workers from now on when there is a vacancy.

They will not only obtain regular job status but also enjoy better wages and more allowances.

For the remaining 1,862 temporary employees, the city said their work won’t continue throughout the year, but said it will look into their cases further to see if there are more people qualified for the change in job status.

“It is said more than half of non-regular workers lose their jobs within a year. Compared to regular employees, they get half the salary when doing the same work and face unfavorable treatment in bonuses, pension and medical insurance. They always have to worry about their unstable job status,” Park said.

He added he hopes the city’s measure will expand to the private sector.