Useful Info

A worker who is not a standard regular worker in terms of employment type, working hours, continuity of employment, etc. In Korea, as of September 2001, there is no precise concept or definition. Typically, it encompasses workers with labor contracts less than 1 month, such as temporary workers, service workers, part-time workers, contract workers, telecommuters, etc., who work temporarily rather than in continuous positions, or special employment types like daily laborers, caddies, insurance agents, etc., who work without a fixed workplace and move around. In August 2001, the Ministry of Labor announced that it was reviewing a plan to convert them to regular positions after a certain period in relation to the non-regular worker protection measures being discussed in the Labor-Management-Government Committee. While the labor sector has demanded regularization of non-regular workers, the business sector has maintained opposition citing reasons such as rising labor costs. Subsequently, they agreed to discuss issues such as the global trend toward labor market flexibilization, the degree of domestic labor market flexibilization, worker protection issues for special employment forms like fixed-term, short-time, dispatched workers, etc., analysis of domestic and international cases on non-regular employment and protection measures, non-regular worker status surveys, etc., and conducted a status survey on non-regular workers reflecting opinions from both labor and business sectors, thereby preparing a resolution to the surrounding controversies. However, experts diagnose that it will take much more time to completely resolve this non-regular worker issue.