Samsung mulls 'regular part-time scheme'

By Kim Yoo-chul

Samsung said Thursday that it is considering introducing a new flexible employment system that would allow regular part-time staff members.

“Samsung is mulling the possibility of introducing a new employment system, which would offer decent part-time positions that would give employees the same benefits as full-time employees,” said a Samsung official.

But the official stressed Samsung affiliates have yet to decide whether they will also adopt the system because there are many issues to be addressed.

“Samsung is seeking ways of creating more quality jobs in line with the government’s job creation campaign,” said the official.

He added that the group’s tech affiliates including Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDS are revising the system.

He said that the government has yet to fix details about the new labor-management system, such as the number of incentives that would be granted to private firms which adopt the new system.

Sources have said that Samsung might switch existing contract-based employees onto part-time status, with the same benefits as full-time employees.

The nation’s finance minister Hyun Oh-seok recently said that Seoul will lower the nation’s annual average working hours from more than 2,000 hours to within the 1,900 range.

The government said that some 930,000 new jobs will be created if the new labor management system materializes. Korea aims to create 2.4 million new jobs over the next 5 years.