Gwangju Seo-gu Launches Campaign to Protect Emotional Laborers' Rights

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Shin Dong-ho] The Nosa-Minjeong Council of Seo-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City (Chairman Kim Yi-gang) announced on the 14th that it recently conducted a campaign to protect the rights and interests of emotional laborers who are going through difficult times due to COVID-19.

This campaign was organized under the slogans "Thank you. A warm word makes everyone happy." and "Customer service workers are our family." to contribute to improving social awareness and enhancing the rights and interests of emotional laborers.

As South Korea's industrial structure shifts toward a service-oriented economy, the proportion of emotional laborers among all wage workers is increasing, and cases of harm to emotional laborers are also rising.

According to the 2020 Gwangju Metropolitan City Emotional Labor Survey, the number of service industry workers in Gwangju is approximately 280,000, with store sales at 19.0%, food service at 17.0%, and medical support services at 10.9% in descending order of scale.

Accordingly, Seo-gu has been continuously conducting campaigns for two years by distributing promotional boards to improve awareness of working environments to 250 businesses including small business owners and hospitals/clinics through the Ministry of Employment and Labor's "Regional Nosa-Minjeong Cooperation Activation Support Project" contest.

A Seo-gu official stated, "This campaign is the starting point for protecting emotional laborers, and we plan to continuously promote projects to create a culture where all members of society consider emotional laborers."

Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Shin Dong-ho baekok@asiae.co.kr

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