SME Industry "Government Support for Labor Costs of Experts Essential to Prevent Serious Accidents"

(Third from the left in the front row) Yang Ok-seok, Head of the Workforce Policy Office at the Korea Federation of SMEs, and Yang Hyun-soo, Director of Safety and Health Supervision Planning at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, are taking a commemorative photo at the site of the "Field Opinion Gathering Meeting for Establishing a Roadmap to Reduce Major Accidents" held on the 20th at the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeouido. Photo by Korea Federation of SMEs

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwak Minjae] The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (Kbiz) announced on the 20th that it held a "Field Opinion Gathering Meeting for the Preparation of a Serious Accident Reduction Roadmap" at the Kbiz headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul.

The Serious Accident Reduction Roadmap is a project being developed by the Ministry of Employment and Labor to shift the paradigm of serious accident reduction to a focus on autonomy and prevention. It is scheduled to be announced in October this year. About 20 safety executives and managers from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in various industries such as plastics, steel, and food, including the head of the Safety and Health Supervision Planning Division of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, attended the meeting.

The safety executives and managers from 11 participating industries expressed various difficulties and institutional inconsistencies regarding the Serious Accident Punishment Act, which came into effect on January 27. Company A, a plastics manufacturer with 50 employees, said, "SMEs cannot even hire personnel to be assigned to production, so it is impossible to find someone to handle safety tasks," adding, "I have to do an enormous amount of paperwork alone, and it is truly overwhelming."

Company B, a mold manufacturer with 100 employees, explained, "According to the Serious Accident Punishment Act, even in cases where subcontracting companies are extremely limited, only companies with safety capabilities must be selected," and added, "If we cannot subcontract, the company cannot be sustained, but there is no solution."

There was also a suggestion that the government should actively support safety investment costs and wages for specialized personnel to enable even resource-constrained micro and small enterprises to prevent serious accidents.

Company C, a spinning company with 50 employees, stated, "Recently, raw material prices and labor costs have risen sharply, putting severe pressure on costs, and we simply cannot afford safety device expenses," and requested, "The government should expand the scope of safety investment cost support from SMEs with fewer than 50 regular employees to those with fewer than 300 employees."

Company D, a food manufacturer with 50 employees, said, "Many SMEs do not have the financial capacity to hire professional safety managers, and it is actually difficult to recruit them," and requested, "The government should partially subsidize wages or support industry-specific safety experts to provide assistance."

Regarding this, Yang Hyunsoo, head of the Safety and Health Supervision Planning Division at the Ministry of Employment and Labor, said, "Serious accidents in Korea have been significantly reduced through the efforts of all members despite difficult conditions with a high proportion of SMEs and manufacturing and construction industries, but it is now difficult to reduce accidents with the current methods alone."

He added, "We will fully support reducing the safety and health gap between large and small-medium enterprises and help SMEs build safety and health capabilities, and revise unrealistic laws to ensure effectiveness," and said, "We ask for continued efforts from SME CEOs and safety managers to further reduce serious accidents."

Yang Okseok, head of the Human Resources Policy Office at Kbiz, said, "Although about eight months have passed since the Serious Accident Punishment Act was enacted, the effect on reducing serious accidents is unclear, while the burden felt by SMEs in the field has greatly increased," and added, "We hope that the Serious Accident Reduction Roadmap will reflect improvements to unreasonable systems that do not align with the field, as well as sufficient support for safety investment costs and wages for specialized personnel for SMEs lacking human and financial resources."

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