Minister of Employment Visits Small Construction Companies... "Workplace Accident Guidance for Manufacturing Industry as Well"

Minister of Employment and Labor An Kyung-duk. / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] An Kyung-duk, Minister of Employment and Labor, visited small and medium-sized construction sites where multiple worker fatalities had occurred on the 26th to inspect safety conditions and subsequently held a meeting with disaster prevention organizations.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, Minister An visited a new construction site of a self-housing maintenance project in Jegi-dong, Seoul, on the morning of the same day to check the safety measures at the site.

Minister An stated, "Most industrial accident fatalities occur because the most basic safety measures are not followed," adding, "Especially at small-scale construction sites, the risk of 'falls' is ever-present, so I urge everyone from site managers to workers to exercise special safety management until the construction is completed."

Afterwards, Minister An held a meeting with specialized construction disaster prevention organizations that oversee safety management at small and medium-sized construction sites (100 million to 12 billion KRW).

At the meeting, Minister An requested active efforts from private disaster prevention organizations and discussed ways to enhance the effectiveness of technical guidance.

Each organization presented their key technical guidance initiatives and institution-specific specialized plans to encourage safety activities among site managers and workers.

Minister An said, "To reduce industrial accident fatalities, safety management in the construction industry, which accounts for half of the fatalities, is crucial," and added, "We plan to significantly strengthen support projects such as free technical guidance targeting small-scale sites under 5 billion KRW with poor safety management by increasing next year’s budget (from 63 billion to 161 billion KRW)."

Minister An also stated, "Starting with this meeting, we plan to directly inspect and manage not only construction sites but also other sectors with frequent industrial accident fatalities, such as manufacturing."

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