Korea to hire substitutes for officials’ parental leave

Amid rising applications for parental leave, the South Korean government will hire more substitute workers to fill in for civil servants on parental leave, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

Starting next year, the government will raise the substitution rate of those on parental leave to 80 percent from the current 60 percent, the Finance Ministry said in a press release. This will create 1,000 new jobs, the ministry said.

The number of employees of government institutions taking parental leave has been on the rise, from 3,679 in 2011 to 5,183 in 2014. Their posts, however, were either left vacant or tentatively replaced by contract workers under terms of service of less than two years.

Under the current parental leave system, government agencies are reluctant to hire more workers, contract or regular, due to their restrained budgets.

“If a government institution spends more than the predetermined hiring budget, it brings down that institution’s overall rating,” the Finance Ministry said, acknowledging the public institutions had been “conservative” in hiring more hands to replace the employees on parental leave.

The Finance Ministry said it would set aside a greater budget for hiring substitute workers and modify the institution rating system by the end of the year.

By Chung Joo-won (joowonc@heraldcorp.com)