Presented by Jong-Jin Kim, Ph.D. Director of KEAD

1. Outcome of Korean customized training in terms of disability employment Presented by Jong-Jin Kim, Ph.D. Director of KEAD

2. Korea Employment Agency for the Disabled(KEAD) KEAD is a semi-governmental agency under the Ministry of Employment and Labor. It was established in 1990 in order to support job creation and employment stability of persons with disabilities in Korea. KEAD is comprised of Headquarters, 15 branches, and 5 vocational competency development institutes. As of now, the total number of employees is 625.

3. Outline • Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for persons with disabilities • Background of Customized Training • Operation of Customized Training • Outcome of Customized Training • Limitations of Customized Training • Implications

4. Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs • Korea has been enforcing Employment Quota System as a major vehicle for the realization of employment equality of PWDs. • Employment Quota System • Employment Quota System introduced in 1990 • The obligatory employment rate is 3% for state-owned organizations and 2.7% for private companies (applied only to companies with 50 or more employees). • Companies with employment obligation pay levy for the number of persons below the obligatory employment rate.

5. Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs • Employment Quota System(continued) • Companies employing persons with disabilities in excess of the obligatory employment rate enjoy subsidy • subsidy differs according to the employment period, gender, and degree of disability.

6. Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs • Policy Outcome • Unemployment rate has dropped to 6.6% in 2010 from a whopping 32.1% in 1990, when Korea first introduced the policy. • Employment rate of companies with obligation to employ persons with disabilities increased to 2.24% from 0.52% in 1990. • (2.40% for governmental sector, 2.19% for private sector) • The related institution has improved greatly such as acknowledgement of employing one person with severe disability as employing two persons with mild disabilities, target expansion of obligatory employment rate to include companies with more than 50 employees(currently companies with 300 employees), increase of obligatory employment rate(2%→3% for public sector, 2%→2.7% for private sector)

7. Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs • Challenging Tasks • As of 2010, the unemployment rate(6.5%) of persons with disabilities is two times higher than that of persons without disabilities • The benefit of the employment quota system is concentrated on persons with mild disabilities. As of late 2010, rate of employees with severe disabilities in the companies with obligation to employ PWDs is a mere 17.7%. < Rate of mild and severe disability among the employed >

8. Overview of the Korean Employment Policy for PWDs • Challenging Tasks (continued) • Insufficient improvement in employment quality • Wage gap between persons with disabilities and persons without disabilities did not decrease.(the average wage of PWDs is 65% of their counterparts). Employment instability such as unpaid and daily work did not improve. • The larger a company’s size, the less active disability employment is.

9. Background of Customized Training • Customized training was adopted to resolve problems arising from disability employment such as poor employment quality and instability. • Awareness about training problems in the existing vocational training centers • It is difficult to flexibly open and close training courses according to market demand due to the characteristics of training centers. • Imbalance in supply and demand arose because of supplier-centered training regardless of market demand.

10. Background of Customized Training • Awareness about training problems in the existing vocational training centers (continued) • Some trainees received re-training in companies after they get employed due to the technological gap between training centers and companies.

11. Background of Customized Training • A New Idea - Customized Training • It is the custom-made training to suit companies’ requirements. • Companies can engage directly in all training procedures or suggest opinions including selection of trainees, establishment of training purpose and period, design of training programs, and implementation of training. • Companies employ all trainees who completed training courses unless they are incapacitated or unqualified. • It strategically targets large-size companies with low disability employment rate.

12. Operation of Customized Training • Customized training has been phased in from 2007 and expanded annually. In 2010, 72.5% of total trainees(1,035 people) received the training. • Training courses are various such as mechanic CAD, machine equipment, electronic circuit design, design, programming, telemarketing, office machine assembly and inspection and so on. • The rate of large companies(with more than 300 employees) among all companies joining in the training reaches 40%. • The average training period is 7.5 months.

13. Procedure of Customized Training- Planning

14. Procedure of Customized Training– Selection of Trainees

15. Procedure of Customized Training– Implementation of Training

16. Procedure of Customized Training– Employment

17. Outcome of Customized Training • High training outcome • Customized training produced the outstanding outcome compared to existing training in terms of the employment rate(The average employment rate is 92%), wage, employment duration, satisfaction level. • Increase of disability employment in large companies Large companies that used to avoid disability employment by reason of lack of suitable personnel with disabilities began to hire PWDs through the customized training. Thus, It served as an effective way for inducing disability employment in large companies.

18. Outcome of Customized Training • Increase of disability employment in large companies (continued) • For instance, top-notch companies such as Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, LG Electronics, Standard Chartered First Bank, Canon Korea Business began to employ PWDs. • Customized training minimizes unnecessary loss of training and shortens training period because it has more clear goal and trainees get skills companies require. • Consequently, customized training in Korea boost satisfaction of both PWDs and employers and made a big contribution to improvement of quality in disability employment, which emerges as a big problem recently.

19. Limitations of Customized Training • As customized training is driven by corporate demand, there is a possibility that persons with severe disabilities whose market demand is low are excluded from the training. • It is difficult to persuade companies that avoided employing PWDs to participate in customized training. • There is a concern that trainees can’t learn comprehensive skills related to overall training courses because most of the customized training involves specific skills training which companies want.

20. Implication • The key to success of customized training is to induce more active participation and intervention of companies in the training procedures. • Extra measures such as supported employment which helps training and employment of persons with severe disabilities should be prepared because there is a risk that customized training can exclude training of persons with severe disabilities.

21. Implication • Implementing customized training with individual companies which wish to hire a few persons with disabilities is not cost-effective. In this case, it is more efficient to make a joint agreement and implement the customized training with group of similar businesses or employers’ union by industries.

22. If you need further information regarding customized training, please e-mail me. jjkim@kead.or.kr Thank You!