The "God's Workplace" KEPCO... 369 Employees Applied for Voluntary Retirement

369 Applicants for 150 Selected
65 Employees with Less Than 20 Years of Service

Korea Electric Power Corporation (President Kim Dong-cheol) has revealed that nearly 400 employees have applied for voluntary retirement.

According to industry sources on the 12th, KEPCO accepted voluntary retirement applications from employees with more than 4 years of service from the 30th of last month until the 8th of this month. As a result of the application process, 369 applicants, more than twice the 150 voluntary retirees to be selected, applied. This contrasts with industry expectations that the actual number of voluntary retirement applicants would be lower.

Among the applicants, 304 employees with over 20 years of service (eligible for honorary retirement) accounted for about 82%. The number of employees with 4 to 19 years of service was also 65.

Korea Electric Power Corporation Naju Headquarters
[Image source=Yonhap News]

The main reason employees want to leave the company is the financial difficulties. KEPCO has eliminated all support payments previously given to employees during holidays or anniversaries starting this year. At the beginning of this year, the 'Enforcement Rules for Salary and Welfare Management Regulations' were revised, deleting Article 55, which provided support payments of 400,000 KRW each for Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays, and 100,000 KRW each for Labor Day, the company’s founding anniversary, and the labor union’s founding anniversary.

As voluntary retirement applications surged, KEPCO began the process of selecting candidates. The plan is to prioritize employees with longer tenure. To ensure fairness with lower-tenure applicants, 80% of the total selected will be employees with over 20 years of service, and the remaining 20% will be employees with less than 20 years of service.

According to an agreement with the labor union, employees with over 20 years of service eligible for honorary retirement will receive 50% of the honorary retirement pay, while employees with less than 20 years of service eligible for early retirement will receive early retirement pay ranging from 50% to 300% of six months’ worth of monthly salary, depending on their length of service.

After reviewing the eligibility of applicants and deliberation by the personnel committee, the final list of voluntary retirement candidates will be confirmed and announced around the 24th of this month. Those selected for voluntary retirement will be processed for retirement on June 15.

Meanwhile, KEPCO plans to conduct a 4th-grade open recruitment in the second half of this year to minimize workforce gaps caused by this voluntary retirement.

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