A Comparative Study of Employment Support System for Unemployed Youth : Linking the British Experience to the Korean Context

청소년 실업자를 위한 고용지원제도 비교 연구 : 영국과 한국을 중심으로

The present study is designed to trace the successful reform steps taken within the employment support system in the UK and to extract a set of instructive implications for Korea's future reform path towards an efficient employment support system conductive to youth employment by setting out an analytical framework that links the British experience to the Korean context. To this end, this study focuses on three major aspects of employment support system: delivery mechanism, method of delivery, and programs. Implications drawn from the comparative analysis are as follows. First, the current employment support services in Korea-including job placement service, vocational training, and public works-should be more tightly integrated and delivered in a more consistent fashion in order to become highly accessible to the unemployed. Second, the cooperative network between employment service providers and the corporate sector as demander of labor should be institutionalized in order to make the employment support system more responsive to labor demand. Third, to create an enhanced employment support system that counts in individual differences of the unemployed would require continued, in-depth consultation and case management services along with fully specialized employment caseworkers who would provide them. Fourth, the government should take the initiative and be unflaggingly supportive both institutionally and financially in making future efforts to continuously improve the employment support system on the basis of the implications mentioned above.