Construction Companies, Nuclear Power Specialists Hiring New Employees Is 'Out of the Question'

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo In-ho] "Even specialized personnel in nuclear power plants are being reassigned to other departments through retraining. Hiring new personnel is out of the question."

An executive at a major construction company described the management of nuclear power plant specialists this way. Due to the government's nuclear phase-out policy, domestic nuclear power plant orders have been halted, and overseas orders have also become difficult, making it inevitable not only to stop hiring new personnel but also to reassign existing experienced staff.

According to the construction industry on the 20th, the door to new hiring related to nuclear power plants is completely closed at major domestic construction companies. Since nuclear power projects are limited to a few large construction firms and there are no new nuclear power plant construction orders, it is impossible to hire personnel even if they wanted to.

Checking the hiring records or plans for related personnel at major domestic construction companies, no company has hired personnel with relevant majors in the past two years.

Company A, which hired hundreds of regular employees annually during the Lee Myung-bak administration when it secured a $40 billion (approximately 46.4 trillion KRW) nuclear power plant order from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has not hired any new or experienced personnel in the past three years.

Company B decided not to separately recruit nuclear power plant specialists in its new year hiring policy. Company C has not hired a single nuclear power plant specialist since 2016, before the current administration took office.

Company D also has had no new or experienced regular hires related to nuclear power plants for three years from 2018 to this year. The company hired 3 to 5 contract workers for overseas nuclear power projects, but even those contracts were terminated after the orders fell through.

The problem is that construction companies are finding it difficult to even maintain their existing specialized personnel. Since the overall workforce is being reduced, it is hard to keep personnel in the nuclear power sector that is not producing results.

A representative from Company A sighed, saying, "There are personnel coming out of nuclear power plants where construction will soon be completed," and added, "We are worried about where and how to assign these specialists in the future."

Another representative from a major construction company said, "With the company's sales and profits in the nuclear power sector declining, it is a headache to decide where to assign the specialists on site immediately," and added, "We are retraining and reallocating them to other departments, but if the situation worsens, we will have no choice but to carry out restructuring."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.