Changwon Special City Takes Steps to Improve Working Conditions for Social Welfare Facility Workers This Year

Implementation of Reforms Including the Compensation System for Regional Child Center Workers

Changwon Special City in Gyeongnam will implement the 2024 local children's center staff compensation system reform plan, which includes the introduction of a seniority-based wage system and holiday leave pay, to improve the care environment for vulnerable children and the treatment of local children's center workers.

Seo Hogwan, Director of the Welfare, Women, and Health Bureau, is giving a briefing.

Until now, the wages of local children's center workers have been paid as a fixed amount based on the Ministry of Health and Welfare's support standards for local children's centers, without wage increases according to experience, leading to continuous demands for the introduction of a seniority-based system and improved treatment.

Accordingly, Changwon City has actively reflected these demands and will preemptively introduce the seniority-based wage system and holiday leave pay starting in 2024, prior to the Ministry of Health and Welfare's official adoption of the seniority system. This compensation system reform will be implemented from the January salary payment after procedures such as determining staff seniority are completed.

The seniority-based wage system applies to full-time local children's center staff, including facility managers and welfare workers, applying 88% of the average basic salary for each seniority level from 1 to 20 according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare's wage guidelines. Holiday leave pay will be provided twice a year at 15% of the basic salary each time, totaling 30% annually.

Additionally, the city is actively working to improve the treatment of youth training facility workers. This year, a budget of 84 million KRW has been secured to provide a fixed meal allowance of 140,000 KRW per month to workers at six youth training facilities.

Salaries for youth training facility workers are based on the wage guidelines for public youth training facilities presented by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, consisting of a basic salary and nine types of allowances. However, application varies depending on the conditions of the training facilities and local governments, leading to ongoing demands for improved treatment and rights enhancement for youth facility workers.

In response, the city enacted the “Ordinance on the Treatment and Status Improvement of Youth Instructors in Changwon City” in 2021 and has been supporting youth instructor qualification allowances since 2022 to improve salary treatment.

In 2022, the Changwon Welfare Foundation adopted the “Survey on the Actual Conditions and Improvement Measures for Youth Training Facility Workers in Changwon City” as a research project, gathering opinions from field workers and deriving improvement measures, which led to the provision of fixed meal allowances starting this year.

The city plans to expand the accident insurance premium support project, which was newly implemented in 2023, to all elderly welfare facilities operated by social welfare corporations from 2024, regardless of the operating entity.

The accident insurance premium support project is a government-supported program that covers medical expenses due to accident injuries. The government supports 10,000 KRW of the annual 20,000 KRW accident insurance premium per person, with the worker paying the remaining 10,000 KRW.

By extending support to all elderly welfare facility workers starting this year, approximately 1,500 additional workers will benefit, bringing the total number of beneficiaries to about 2,400.

Seo Hogwan, Director of the Welfare, Women, and Health Bureau, said, “We thank the social welfare facility workers who work with dedication on the front lines of social welfare despite various working conditions. We will continue to strive to improve the treatment of welfare facility workers so that it leads to enhanced quality of welfare services.”

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