Korean Air New Employees Who Waited 1 Year to Start Work on the 15th

At the Korean Air cargo terminal of Incheon International Airport, the cargo plane appears to be smiling brightly. In the New Year of the Year of the Black Tiger, we hope that the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) will disappear and the skies will open. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Dongwoo Lee] Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the new hires at Korean Air whose first day of work was indefinitely postponed will start their first day on the 15th, right after the Lunar New Year holiday. This comes about a year after their planned entry in March last year was delayed.

According to the aviation industry on the 10th, Korean Air has finalized the hiring of about 60 new employees who were scheduled to join on March 1st last year, and these new hires will begin work next week. They are general, technical, and IT staff who passed the open recruitment from September to December 2019, excluding flight attendants, and have been on standby for employment for the past year.

After joining, the new employees will undergo job training and will be assigned to various departments based on needs, including passenger service, cargo, maintenance, air traffic control, as well as strategy, finance, and human resources. However, considering that group training is not possible due to the COVID-19 situation, the training will be replaced with online sessions and the training period will be partially shortened from three months.

Although the new hires will finally start work after waiting for a year, some may enter a rotational leave after completing their training. Korean Air excludes them from rotational leave during the training period but plans to discuss the application of rotational leave depending on the working environment after department assignment. Currently, as part of cost-saving measures due to COVID-19, about 70% of Korean Air’s approximately 19,000 employees are on rotational leave.

Korean Air stated, "Companies receiving employment retention subsidies from the government due to employee furloughs are generally prohibited from hiring new employees, making it difficult to set the new hires’ start dates. However, considering that these new hires were confirmed before the COVID-19 outbreak, we have consulted with the Ministry of Employment and Labor regarding their recruitment," and added, "We will do our best to help the new employees adapt well."

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