Top managers responsible for Doosan's trouble, not new recruits

A captured image of Doosan Infracore’s English website. In contrast to its slogan, “At Doosan, people are the most important asset,” the company has dismissed hundreds of workers, including new recruits.

By Lee Hyo-sik

Park Yong-maan Doosan Group Chairman

Doosan Infracore, the construction equipment making unit of struggling Doosan Group, has been causing a stir lately over its plan to dismiss new recruits through a voluntary retirement program.

Normally, the scheme is largely designed to lay off senior employees who get fat paychecks. But letting junior employees go clearly shows how dire the situation is for the company.

Since its controversial dismissal plan was made public early last week, the company has been hammered by media outlets and the public for making young employees scapegoats for its ongoing trouble.

Doosan said 704 workers out of its 3,041 workforce, or 23 percent, filed for voluntary retirement, including those who have been with the company for less than two years. The construction equipment maker refused to unveil how many junior employees expressed their willingness to quit, fearing that it could undergo another round of media bashing.

But nobody cares about what Doosan Infracore goes through. The public attention is wholly on those in their late 20s and early 30s who will soon be thrown back into the jungle in search of new jobs.

The truth is they shouldn’t be the ones held responsible for Doosan’s trouble and shouldn’t have to undergo harsh job searching. Group Chairman Park Young-Maan, Infracore CEO Sohn Dong-youn and other senior executives are the ones responsible for the problem.

Their bad management decisions and incompetency got Infracore and other troubled group units to where they are now.

Among others, Doosan’s top management failed to forecast a steep slowdown in China and other emerging economies.

Rather than bracing for a prolonged global slump, they spent billions of dollars over the past few years to expand production capacities at home and abroad. This overinvestment has backfired and forced Infracore to dispose of assets, stop operating plants and dismiss workers.

Besides subjecting Infracore to stringent restructuring, what personal sacrifices have Doosan Chairman Park and other top managers made? The answer is nothing.

Before dismissing workers en masse, they should have held themselves responsible for badly managing Infracore and other group units.

They should have quit their posts or at least offered personal assets to help revive the struggling firm. But unfortunately, that possibility is very slim.

Over the years, Doosan Group, Korea’s 12th-largest family-controlled conglomerate, has been branding itself as a business group that places top priority on people under the slogan of “people are the future.”

Last month, Park donated 3 billion won to a government-initiated Youth Hope Fund, which finances various programs for young jobseekers, after many business tycoons did so, in hopes that they may gain favors from President Park Geun-hye.

Rather than donate the money, the chairman should have kept young Infracore employees on the payroll.

Who will believe Park next time when he says “people are the future”? Probably no one.