Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service Discusses System Improvements to Address Difficulties Faced by Injured Workers

The Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service is currently reviewing the overall operation of its systems and discussing improvement measures to address the difficulties faced by workers injured on the job.

According to the agency, over the past five years, the number of occupational accident cases processed increased by 49.4%, rising from 123,921 cases in 2020 to 185,092 cases in 2025. In particular, occupational diseases, which involve more complex procedures, surged by 173.4%, from 18,634 cases to 50,946 cases. Occupational diseases can be affected by various factors such as an individual's health condition or living environment, so complex procedures like special medical examinations or epidemiological investigations are often required to determine job-relatedness. As a result, the processing period had extended to as much as 227.7 days.

In accordance with national policy tasks, the agency is pursuing innovations such as standardization, specialization, and automation of work procedures to shorten the processing period for occupational diseases from 227.7 days in 2025 to 160 days in 2026 and 120 days by 2027. Musculoskeletal disorders, which account for the largest share (51%) of occupational diseases, have seen significant improvements through efforts to standardize accident investigation procedures for high-frequency occupations, simplify special medical examinations and decision procedures, and operate dedicated occupational disease teams at 64 branch offices nationwide. As a result, in the first quarter of this year, the processing period for musculoskeletal disorders was reduced by 50.8 days compared to the same period last year.

Jonggil Park, President of the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service (first from the right), visited the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service Daejeon Hospital on the 22nd with Dongmyung Kim, Chairman of the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (second from the right), along with about 20 labor union chairpersons and labor sector officials to encourage workers injured on the job who are undergoing treatment. Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service

The agency plans to further enhance the accuracy of workers' compensation by standardizing processing criteria and revising manuals for each work stage, establishing a monitoring system focused on cases of improper claims, and providing training for staff. The goal is to build a work process centered on prevention to ensure that even minor mistakes in the compensation process are not overlooked.

Jonggil Park, President of the Korea Workers' Compensation and Welfare Service, stated, "Workers' compensation is a system designed to address urgent situations faced by workers, so its fairness and credibility must never be compromised. We will meticulously review and manage the compensation process to ensure that no well-intentioned injured worker is disadvantaged by improper claims, thereby building a sustainable workers' compensation insurance system."

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