Human Rights Commission: "Daejeon MBC's Regular Employment of Only Male Announcers is Gender Discrimination"

Recommendation to Convert Freelancer Announcer to Regular Employee at Daejeon MBC

National Human Rights Commission of Korea
Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kim Bong-ju] The National Human Rights Commission has ruled that hiring only men as regular employees and women as contract or freelance workers in broadcasting announcer recruitment constitutes discriminatory hiring based on gender.

The Human Rights Commission announced on the 17th that it recommended Daejeon MBC to prepare measures to eliminate the long-standing discriminatory hiring practices and to convert freelance announcer Yoo Ji-eun, who filed a complaint claiming damage from gender-discriminatory hiring, and former freelance announcer Kim Ji-won, who resigned last year, into regular employees.

The Commission also stated that Daejeon MBC must pay 5 million won each in consolation money to announcers Yoo and Kim.

According to the Human Rights Commission's investigation, Daejeon MBC hired a total of four regular announcers one by one since the 1990s, all of whom were men.

However, from 1997 until June 2019, when the complaint was filed with the Human Rights Commission, 15 contract announcers and 5 freelance announcers were hired, all of whom were women.

Daejeon MBC explained that this was a coincidental result with no intention of gender discrimination, and that the recruitment guidelines and procedures did not distinguish or restrict hiring by gender.

Regarding this, the Human Rights Commission stated, "(Daejeon MBC) differentiated employment types by gender at the recruitment stage, hiring women as contract or freelance announcers when female announcers were needed for existing vacancies, and men as regular employees when male announcers were needed," adding, "Since the 1990s, all regular announcers have been men, and all non-regular announcers have been women without exception, which is the result of a long-standing discriminatory hiring practice."

Furthermore, the Commission said, "Although the complainants are freelancers in form, they perform essentially the same duties as male regular announcers," and "It appears that discriminatory hiring was maintained to easily terminate contracts based on the perception that women’s value decreases with age."

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