Busan City Wins 'Excellence Award' in Public Disclosure System and Outstanding Projects Categories at National Local Governments Job Awards

On the 2nd, Busan City received Excellence Awards in both the Public Disclosure category and the Outstanding Project category at the ‘2023 National Local Government Job Awards’ hosted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor.

The ‘National Local Government Job Awards’ is a competition started in 2012 by the Ministry of Employment and Labor to promote local governments’ efforts and achievements in job creation and to raise social interest. This year marks its 12th edition.

Last year, the city achieved results in the job sector by alleviating employment market instability caused by COVID-19, focusing on digital transformation and attracting innovative companies, achieving the highest-ever employment rate (ages 15?64) and the largest scale of corporate investment attraction.

In the Public Disclosure category, which comprehensively evaluates local governments’ job-related initiatives, Busan reflected last year’s employment conditions and established and implemented customized policies, achieving the highest increase in employment rate (ages 15?64) in 20 years.

To respond to changes in local employment conditions such as delayed employment recovery due to COVID-19, ongoing impacts on local industries and small businesses, and acceleration of the digital economy, the city implemented job policies focusing on ▲ employment market stabilization ▲ digital job transition ▲ innovative growth job creation ▲ customized job support by sector.

As a result, the city achieved ▲ creation of 1,269 jobs and employment linkage for 1,468 people in the West Busan machine parts industry ▲ fostering talent through industry-academia cooperation and development of future new growth technologies ▲ attraction of 71 excellent domestic and foreign companies creating 6,030 jobs ▲ support for local startups’ overseas expansion ▲ creation of 330 eco-friendly jobs suitable for the elderly.

Additionally, the city recorded an annual employment rate (ages 15?64) of 65.4% last year, marking the largest increase in 20 years (1.5 percentage points).

Busan City Hall.

In the Outstanding Project category, the ‘Smart Manufacturing Growth Ladder Project,’ which links the advancement of intelligent (smart) factories?key to future manufacturing growth?with the creation of specialized jobs, was selected for the Excellence Award.

Although smart factories are being activated nationwide, Busan’s manufacturing companies, which have a high proportion of small businesses, showed low adoption of intelligent factories. Even companies that had established smart factories often faced difficulties in post-installation management and technology improvement, resulting in factory operation rates not rising as expected.

In response, Busan City provided customized technical support and consulting tailored to the smart factories of the West Busan machine parts industry, a core local manufacturing sector, to assist local companies struggling with smart factory operations and linked them with specialized personnel recruitment.

Over two years, a total of 1.74 billion KRW was invested to conduct 150 on-site technical improvement guidance sessions and 126 customized consulting sessions for 64 companies covering process improvement, productivity enhancement, and maintenance. Additionally, recruitment support was provided for 134 employees responsible for intelligent manufacturing technology.

The city’s support project resulted in a 118 billion KRW (120%) increase in participating companies’ sales compared to the previous year and laid the foundation for activating intelligent factories through customized specialized personnel linkage.

With this job award, Busan City secured an incentive project fund of 85 million KRW from the Ministry of Employment and Labor, which will be used for local job projects and other purposes.

Park Hyung-jun, Mayor of Busan, said, “This award recognizes our city’s efforts last year to overcome difficulties in local jobs caused by COVID-19 and high inflation, and to expand future jobs through digital talent development, attraction of excellent companies, and activation of intelligent factories.”

He added, “We will continue to move forward as Busan, a city centered on citizens’ happiness and future jobs, by creating new growth jobs, resolving job mismatches, and expanding good jobs.”

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