A person on an electric wheelchair prepares for a job interview at a job and business startup fair at Daejeon City Hall, Oct. 24. Yonhap Companies often choose to pay gov't fines instead of hiring Editor’s note This article is the 11th in The Korea Times' 2024 series focusing on diversity, inclusiveness and equality.
— ED. By Ko Dong-hwan People with disabilities still face significant challenges in gaining employment, as companies often opt to bypass their social responsibility by paying fines for not keeping to a government quota of hiring people with disabilities. According to the country's Act on Welfare of Persons with Disabilities, private employers with 50 or more workers, except those with less than 100 employees, are required to allocate at least 3.
1 percent of their positions to people with disabilities, and the ratio is 3.8 percent for state-run companies. A company in violation is fined depending on how far behind the quota it is.
However, many companies pay fines instead of complying with the regulation, and some of the top companies in Korea are no exception, according to data from the Korea Employment Agency for Persons with Disabilities (KEAD) under the Ministry of Employment and Labor. Samsung Electronics tops the list in terms of noncompliance fines, according to Rep. Lee Yong-woo of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea who cited the KEAD data.
Last year, the global tech giant hired 2,210 people with disabilities, meeting only 59 percent of its .