"기간제•파견 제한하니 용역•도급직↑…고용 규모는↓"<br /><br />In 2007, the South Korean government enforced a law to prevent companies from' abusing non-regular workers. <br />It was designed to protect fixed-term employees and workers dispatched by agencies.<br />But some say the move was counterproductive.<br />Our Ko Roon-hee takes a closer look. <br />The law limiting companies' use of non-regular workers, including fixed-term employees and workers employed through an agency,... has increased the number of regular workers, but it has also led to a decrease in the total number of workers, and led to more subcontracted workers who fall into categories not covered by the law. <br />This is according to a report released on Monday by the Korea Development Institute, a state-run think tank.<br />The report compared how more than 5-thousand-8-hundred companies hired employees in 2005 and after 2007, when the government enforced a law to prevent the abuse of non-regular workers.<br />The law included measures to protect non-regular workers by for example, mandating that after a certain time period, companies had to change the status of temporary workers to permanent workers.<br />The Korea Development Institute says this law actually decreased the total employment size.<br />They also found out that companies hired more people not protected by the law...including contract workers. <br />"We can divide the total workers into 3 categories, regular workers, non-regular workers protected by the law, and non-regular workers unprotected by the law. It's like pushing the middle part of a balloon. As the South Korean government decreased the number of non-regular workers protected by the law, workers in other two categories increased."<br />The researcher says a lot of effort is needed to prevent the abuse of non-regular workers, but the law has some limits.<br />Therefore, the researcher says it is more important to think about what companies need in order to lessen their burden when transitioning from non-regular workers to regular ones. <br />"For companies to change non-regular workers to regular ones, a lot more flexibility is needed in working conditions for regular workers. Looser limits on work hours is one of many examples."<br />Ko Roon-hee, Arirang News. <br />
