Half of SMEs Feel Burdened by Legal Mandatory Training Work Gaps

Urgent Need to Reduce Training Hours and Types, Establish Online Education System

Half of small and medium-sized enterprises feel burdened by the work gap caused by completing legally mandated training such as safety education. Graph = Provided by the Korea Federation of SMEs

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] It was found that half of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) feel burdened by the work gaps caused by completing legally mandated training such as safety education.

The Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 19th that this was the result of a survey titled 'Status and Difficulties of Legally Mandated Training in Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises,' conducted on 522 small manufacturing companies nationwide.

The proportion of respondents who felt "burdened" by the work gaps caused by completing legally mandated training was 49.6%. Among the legally mandated trainings requiring improvement such as reducing training hours and types, "Industrial Safety and Health Education" was the highest at 35.8%. This was followed by "Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention Education" at 26.4%, and "Personal Information Protection Education" at 25.7%.

Regarding legally mandated trainings that do not help with work (multiple responses allowed), Personal Information Protection Education (42.3%) was the most cited, followed by Workplace Sexual Harassment Prevention Education (37.5%), Disability Awareness Education (34.7%), and Industrial Safety and Health Education (14.5%).

The average cost incurred by small manufacturing companies to complete legally mandated training was 587,000 KRW. The average number of online mandatory trainings was 0.3, and the rate of conducting online legally mandated training was 21.3%.

The average number of offline mandatory trainings was 4.5, and the rate of conducting offline legally mandated training was 92.5%, confirming that most SMEs conduct offline training.

Jung Wookjo, Head of the Innovation Growth Division at the Korea Federation of SMEs, stated, "For SMEs struggling with management difficulties due to COVID-19 and flood damage, legally mandated training can make workforce management even more difficult. Since group training and long training hours can further increase the burden of work gaps, it is necessary to reduce the burden caused by mandatory training through measures such as establishing online systems."

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