[Gwanga in] Fair Trade Commission Employees "Increasing Performance Pressure and Growing Burden"

Fair Trade Commission, Policy-Investigation Separation Implemented Last April
Employees "Significant Increase in Cases Handled Per Person"

Three months have passed since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) launched a major organizational restructuring focused on separating the investigation and policy departments, but dissatisfaction is emerging among employees. Although the reorganization was intended to speed up the FTC’s case investigation process, employees responsible for investigations on the front lines say that the actual workload has increased, making it difficult to accelerate the pace.

According to related government sources on the 17th, since the FTC’s organizational restructuring in April, many employees have voiced complaints about being overloaded with work. A manager at the FTC said, “There are comments questioning who this separation is really for, as everyone’s workload has increased after the reorganization,” adding, “Especially in the investigation department, the number of actual investigation cases per person has increased.” Under the previous system, there were no employees solely dedicated to policy work within the investigation division. Most employees handled both investigation and policy tasks simultaneously. As a result, when existing investigation personnel were separated into policy staff, the number of investigation staff decreased, increasing the workload each investigator must focus on.

While the workload has increased, pressure to deliver results has also intensified. On the 12th, after his appointment, Vice Chairman Cho Hong-seon told reporters, “The FTC has been criticized for delays in investigations and case processing, but since the investigation and policy departments were separated to expedite investigations, we have expectations and goals to produce results faster than before.” Inside and outside the FTC, since the speed of case processing is the key indicator to measure the success of the reorganization, it is expected that pressure regarding the required speed during personnel evaluations in the investigation department will also increase.

Among employees, there are strong complaints that “the upper management of the FTC does not have a good understanding of the field.” An FTC employee said, “The reorganization has created an environment where we can focus solely on investigation work,” but added, “Due to the nature of investigation work, efficiency improves when focusing on one case, but if one employee is responsible for more than 10 cases, the efficiency of investigation work actually decreases.” Recently, companies’ defensive capabilities have been further strengthened through the involvement of major law firms on the ground. Another manager said, “At investigation sites, three law firm staff members closely defend each investigator, making it even more difficult for FTC employees, who lack investigative authority, to achieve results,” and hinted, “We hope the higher-ups will pay attention to the difficulties faced in the field.”

As the FTC recently aligned its pace with major government policies, employees’ workloads have increased. After President Yoon Seok-yeol pointed out monopoly issues in the finance and telecommunications industries, the FTC launched large-scale field investigations into banks, securities firms, insurance companies, and the three major mobile carriers. Recently, the scope has expanded to the education sector, with investigations into exaggerated advertising by private academies also being announced. At a briefing on the 6th, Chairman Han Ki-jung said, “We are actively investigating collusion and unfair practices detected in areas closely related to people’s livelihoods and key industries,” adding, “Please understand this as an effort to promote a fair and free competitive order.”

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