1. Research Purpose
Korean society has been suffereding from a "jobless growth recentaly." To cope with the phenomenon, the government has implemented various policies including the creation of jobs in industries with large employment capacity such as social services and labor-intensive industry. Demands for social services such as medical and welfare servicesare expected to increase continuously, under the assumption that Korea already is an aging society. Hence, social service sector is expected to create more jobs. contributing to the growing expectations for job creation. However, the employment rate of social services in South Korea is significantly lower compared to other OECD countries and is characterized by low satisfaction.
According to the result of「Study on Nationwide Conditions of Elders' Livelihood and Demand for Welfare 2004」, only a few number of respondents (0.7%) had experiences with social services related to care work. In addition, there was a high demand for improved quality of social services. The result indicates that there is a strong demand from the general public for quantitative and qualitative improvement of social services. This implies that there is a need for systematic policy support on the job creation of jobs and the improvement of service quality.
Social service jobs greatly vary according to the job category and the level of expertise which is required for the job. For example, professional job like doctor in medical services require a long-term education and training, whereas semi-professional job such as nursing only require short-term education and training. This is a shared phenomenon throughout social service sector. But the key target who will stimulate demands for jobs in public sector is the workforce in semi-professional job. Majority of this workforce can be female workers, who are hired temporarily in social service industry.
This study attempts to modify job training policy to allow non-skilled women workers to become semi-skilled workers after a short-term education and training.
2. Research Objectives
1) What is social service and what are the characteristics of employment and job training in this industry?
2)What are the size of industry, employment status, and characteristics of temporary female employees in social services?
3) What are the numbers, personal characteristics, and training features of female workers who are participating in government-supported job education & training program for social services industry?
4) What kind of implications does job education and training policies of other countries for social services have on nurturing and utilizing workforce?
5) What are the conditions and problems of job education & training for public household work/nursing service, where a large number of temporary female employees engage in and demand for its expansion?
3. Research Result
1) There are a large number of female workers in social service industry. Among the females in temporary positions, most of them work as a one-time employee or a short-term employee under poor working conditions. A policy is needed for the females to receive systematic protection for a better working environment.
2) Majority of temporary female workers in social services (including care work) are excluded from training and education for temporary jobs. There should be a policy support, not to exclude them from job training policy.
3) Self-supporting and social work job projects to create supply and demand for social services in public sector have limits in contributing to improvement of individual capacity and employment of participants. Therefore, model design and project operation system should be modified.
4)There is no official employment support network to facilitate job/employee search process in the labor market for social services. There should be measures to improve this situation.
5)There should be standardization and systemization of tasks for social services, especially nursing services, and also systematic follow-up maintenance of the process is necessary.
6)It is hard to maintain service quality as education & training program for household work/nursing services is not standardized by operating organizations. Thus, standardization of education & training program is necessary to improve the quality of the program.
7)In case of regions other than Seoul, it is hard to secure instructors for the program. Especially for nursing, it is exceptionally difficult to find the instructor with proper degree of expertise.
8)Despite rapid changes in assigned tasks in household work/nursing service industry, there is a lack of in-service education. In-service education should be actively implemented for better service quality management and follow-up management for the students.
9) In order to improve overall quality of education and training process, an incentive system ran based on evaluation of the education and training organization should be adopted.
In conclusion, policy-related tasks of Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Labor, and Ministry of Gender Equality and Family should carried out to offer stable jobs of better quality. This will ultimately improve the quality of service offered to the general public in the social services sector. ？
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