[Editorial] Korea Exchange Bank's 'Open Hiring'

It's hard to find a the right kind of job once you've missed the right point in time. Jobs with conglomerates and financial companies are considered good forms of employment, but those employers tend to discriminate against people based on schooling or age starting with the application process. Even when the discrimination isn't stated in clear language it happens at the interview stage. Last year one jaebeol was criticized for completely excluding people who had spend more than a year out of university trying to find employment. Now the Korea Exchange Bank (KDB) has broken with that practice in the employment market.

Over the weekend KEB released a list of 100 individuals who had made it through the hiring process for new employees, and among them there is one man forty years old, ten people in their thirties, and five women who were previously full-time housewives. Ten new employees did not graduate from university. The bank says the results reflect an open hiring system based on ability, without regard to age, sex, and education.

The reality of Korean society is that people who for one reason or another don't graduate from university or are above what is considered employment age don't even get the chance to knock on the doors at companies seeking new people. You don't even need to describe how it is for full-time housewives. It is cruel to lose the opportunity to find a job because of momentary circumstances. It remains to be seen whether KEB's new hiring format will settle in as the norm, but the bank deserves a lot of praise for giving people an opportunity when normally you'd say they'd lost their chance. Finding employment is difficult these days and so many university graduates have to wait another year or more for the next hiring season to come around, and there are many who agonize over what to do for having at a young age found jobs that don't fit them.

KEB's hiring format is also significant because of the increasing imbalance between unemployment and employment. It has become easy to lose your job because of things like personnel restructuring, but finding a new one remains as difficult as ever. One of the factors involved is the stiffness of the job market with its set limits on particulars such as age. One hopes that KEB's new hiring format will contribute to resolving that imbalance if it spreads to other employers.

The Hankyoreh, 9 August 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]