Suncheon-si Job Policies Proactively Respond to the Post-Corona Era

Bringing Jobs to Youth and Fresh Energy to Regions
"Manhwa Talent to Suncheon" Laying the Foundation for Leap to Webtoon Creative City
On the Global Stage! Promoting 'Global Creator' Training Programs
Untact Era! Suncheon City Exemplifies Activat

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City (Mayor Heo Seok) has taken a proactive approach with customized job policies to respond to various job crisis situations such as employment shocks caused by the spread of COVID-19 and regional economic crises. Attention is focused on what countermeasures Suncheon City will present in response to the post-COVID era.

▶ Bringing jobs to youth and youthful vitality to the region

Suncheon City started the "MacGyver Training Project" this year to support the settlement of young and middle-aged people who wish to return to farming and rural areas in the severely aging eup and myeon regions, providing services to resolve daily inconveniences for vulnerable residents.

In May, five MacGyvers were appointed in Woldeung-myeon, Byeollyang-myeon, Sangsa-myeon, Haeryong-myeon, and Seo-myeon, residing in workshops in those areas, and over about four months until last month, they resolved 458 cases of daily inconveniences experienced by elderly residents in rural villages.

In addition, the city plans to improve resident welfare by installing stepping stools at vulnerable households and communal village facilities in eup and myeon areas, and is gradually expanding the project by assigning one more MacGyver in Hwangjeon-myeon.

Meanwhile, Suncheon City provides the appointed MacGyvers with workshops remodeled from vacant houses in eup and myeon areas free of charge for five years and supports settlement funds for eight months to attract young people to rural areas.

Also, to proactively respond to the post-COVID era, the "Content Industry Reshoring Project," which is part of nurturing specialized personnel in the content field and creating new jobs, is showing remarkable results.

The Reshoring Project is part of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's region-led youth job project, attracting 2D/3D animation content companies and webtoon companies with global competitiveness to Suncheon City to train professional animators and webtoon artists.

In April, 100 young workers from 13 companies were selected, laying the foundation for revitalizing Suncheon's content industry. In July, the project was selected as an excellent region-led youth job project this year, increasing the budget by about 700 million KRW, and an additional 77 young workers from 8 companies were selected, totaling 165 young workers employed across 21 companies.

Among the 21 companies participating in the Reshoring Project, 17 content companies located in the metropolitan area and Jeonnam region were attracted to Suncheon, and 141 young workers moved to Suncheon City, expected to have a positive effect on expanding knowledge information cultural industry jobs and increasing the economically active population.

In particular, Blue Comics, a subsidiary of Mr. Blue, a specialized webtoon platform, relocated its headquarters to Suncheon and joined this project, with 14 young workers and resident management personnel moving to Suncheon, which is expected to have a significant impact on the development of the cultural content industry.

▶ “Bringing comic talent to Suncheon” Laying the foundation to leap into a webtoon creative city

Suncheon City has been actively fostering the local comic culture industry by signing a business agreement last month with Suncheon University and Cheongam University to establish a regional comic culture industry cooperation system, following the opening ceremony of the Suncheon Global Webtoon Center in June.

The business agreement is significant as it shares a vision for nurturing creative webtoon talent in line with the rapidly growing webtoon industry trend and strengthens mutual cooperation to create future-oriented jobs in the content field.

Especially, reflecting that over 60% of webtoon mobile app users are in their teens and twenties, Suncheon plans to gradually create a webtoon-specialized street where content creative companies can settle, attracting interested young talents.

The Suncheon Global Webtoon Center has established a mid-to-long-term roadmap for branding as a webtoon creative city and plans to attract government-academic linked projects from next year, such as the "Regional Comic Industry Balanced Development Seminar" and the "Regional Comic Company Development Strategy Symposium," to enhance the ecosystem foundation of the regional comic culture industry and raise its status as a webtoon hub center in the Honam region.

Since opening in January this year, the Suncheon Global Webtoon Center houses three companies and twelve artist teams. Established artists focus on serializing and preparing new works, while aspiring artists concentrate on applying for contests to debut. Resident companies focus on discovering region-specific stories and developing webtoon IP content.

Currently, five webtoon creation and production support projects have been completed, one new work is serialized on Naver, another is scheduled for serialization in November, and the global resident company IIE STAR KOREA is accelerating the "Ogongbae" Korea-China-Japan International Comic Contest themed on overcoming COVID-19.

The Suncheon Global Webtoon Center has set its core goal for next year as building the ‘S (Suncheon) - Comic Brand’ created by citizens. Leveraging local resources and strengths, it plans to develop a webtoon-themed cultural plaza festival centered on the webtoon center, including amateur creator parties, the Suncheon Webtoon Festival, and flea markets, laying the groundwork for a full-fledged webtoon-specialized street.

▶ On the world stage! Promoting education to nurture ‘Global Creators’

Suncheon City will conduct video content production training from next month until November to nurture ‘Global Creators’ representing Suncheon.

Global Creators are creators who operate on the world stage through various media platforms by creating photos or videos, representing a typical digital nomad job type that can generate income with basic digital equipment without time and space constraints.

The training period runs from the 9th of next month to November 27th, totaling 20 sessions, consisting of 20 hours of theory and 12 hours of practice, totaling 32 hours.

The curriculum includes video shooting and editing techniques, sharing cases of changes in revenue models and presenting visions, livelihood and revenue structures of creators, and is designed as a customized course for beginner creators. To prevent the spread of COVID-19, all courses will be conducted as non-face-to-face online live lectures.

By providing creator training suitable for the increasingly active content distribution market, there is growing interest in whether this will serve as an opportunity to nurture global talent who can operate on the world stage from Suncheon City.

▶ Untact era! Suncheon City sets an example in activating non-face-to-face program startup support

Suncheon City conducted a qualification acquisition program combining startup education and PMP (Project Manager Professional) international certification at the startup support center ‘Changup Yeondang’ from the 31st of last month to the 11th, over five sessions.

The PMP (Internationally Certified Project Management Professional) qualification support course aims to train experts and equip them with the ability to systematically utilize processes by work area. For general office workers, it helps systematize work processes for efficient task handling, and for entrepreneurs, it is expected to be greatly helpful by integrating startup processes into project management forms.

Suncheon City stated that combining startup and project management is the first case for ‘Changup Yeondang’ and hopes that this free education will provide practical help for self-development to office workers and entrepreneurs, linking to employment and startup.

Additionally, Suncheon City operates ‘Dream Wardrobe’ at the Youth Center, lending interview attire and providing consulting to unemployed youth, and runs various job projects such as the Hope Job Project, which provides public jobs for employment-vulnerable groups and citizens needing livelihood support in response to employment shocks caused by COVID-19, direct employment projects, wage support projects for employed personnel, and various educational projects.

A Suncheon City official said, “In the post-COVID era, new jobs are expected to be created in various fields such as non-face-to-face, bio, and ICT.” He added, “We will do our utmost to create a happy ecological economy city Suncheon, where one can succeed with just an idea, with good work and many jobs.”

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