• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.197-204
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• 2007

Nowadays, the construction industry is suffering from the decrease of labor productivity caused by the lack of skilled workers and the aging labor forces. The hazardous work conditions and safety problems still exist at the construction sites. The earthwork operation is not the exception. The number of skilled earthwork equipment operators has been rapidly reduced and the equipment needs to be operated in dangerous / hazardous work sites. Thus, through the development of intelligent excavating system, Intelligent Excavating System(I.E.S) research team tries to enhance the safety of work environment, productivity, quality, and payability of the earthwork operation. It is also expected that this research contributes to the development of fundamental construction automation technologies and to the creation a new market sector.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.1-41
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• 2007

Since Korea experienced a 'jobless growth' in 2003, creating jobs in the service sector has been considered as a top priority employment agenda. However, despite high employment outcomes in services, labor productivity remains stagnant in the service sector in recent years. A great deal of concern has been raised regarding newly created service jobs. Critics say low productivity in the service sector will harm the engine of economic growth in our country. This paper investigates the side of the demand for quality of labor, namely, the demand for skills as one of the main source of low productivity in the service sector. To analyze the changes of skills demand, this paper suggests the concept of job-based skills instead of worker-based skills and presents the way of constructing measures of job-based skills. By means of common factor analysis using job information in the Korean Dictionary of Occupational Titles, I extract 4 direct measures of job-based skills, such as cognitive skills, physical skills, fine skills, interactive skills. These skill measures are used to explore and to test how the skill structure changed in the service sector during 2002-2006. Empirical Results show that whereas the goods sector makes progress toward upskilling being represented by increased cognitive elements and softenization of tasks, the service sector, although high-educated workers increased, exhibits trends of deskilling in the sense of job-based skills during 2002-2006 in Korea. The trend of deskilling however does not seem a general aspect in the overall service sector. Rather, it seems a compound process that high-skilled jobs are created, but, on the other hand low-skilled jobs requiring physical labor are produced at the same time.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.555-561
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• 2015

The construction industry is a labor-oriented and quality, cost, and schedule performance is effected by technicians. However, the construction industry have faced a labor shortage problem. Therefore, technician graying and no new workers inflow cause labor shortage and decline of worker's skill level. The utilization of foreign technicians instead of domestic technicians has been increased in the construction industry. This paper performed questionnaire survey for 43 managers on 14 project fields to determine the current status and problems of construction technicians and to propose a improvement plan. As a result, most foreign technicians are carpenters and iron workers, but the skill levels are generally lower than domestics. The major problems for foreign technicians are communication and non-skilled. Then, labor productivity and accident rates of foreign technicians are higher than domestics. This paper proposes that skill training programs, language lessons, and multi-cultural programs are effective to improve foreign workers' problems.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.18-27
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• 2012

Despite the rapid development in the construction industry due to the changing new technologies, many projects still fail to meet target deadlines. Shortage in manpower and skilled laborers is one of the main reasons for such delays. Markets with high economic growth and economic expansion (such as Gulf Countries in the Middle East) may have pronounced labor the shortages. Labor subcontracting practices are used sometimes to increase production rates and meet project deadlines. This paper explains and analyses labor subcontracting practices currently being used in many places around the world (and especially in the Gulf Countries) and in particular defines a maximum overtime rate for laborers in the laborer-subcontracting method ensuring that the contractor gains both the time saved during overtime and also reduces the cost per unit produced. The mathematical model used formalizes a closed-form equation for overtime pay in similar situations and as such can be applicable worldwide. Data was collected from representative projects that employed such practices from various trades. Validation of the model and formula has been tested successfully by analyzing historic data. The results prove that contractors often do not reach the optimum use of their practices resulting in a higher cost per unit. The presented model and the analysis should be of interest to many contractors currently involved in the practice or considering its use and to those who wish to find new methods that would help in eliminating as much wastes as possible by allocating their resources in the most efficient way.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.44 no.3 s.217
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• pp.153-161
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• 2006

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the farming product function of rural women and to determine the effect of human capital. The data was based on 300 husbands and wives from 150 farms with crops of high female input time rate such as house-cucumbers, house-strawberries, roses, agaric mushrooms and apples in 2003. According to the results, the rural women were mainly engaged in harvesting, selecting, sorting and packing among about 23 working steps in the Korean farm. These works require a long time for the highly-skilled and have a very important and sensitive effect on quality, quantity, price of products and the farm's income. The cultivated experience and the major cultivation step effect had a positive relationship to farm's income for women. The machine effect was estimated significantly at 0.3976, which indicated that the high-skilled farmers have a positive correlation to farm's income. The rural women's labor value has been evaluated relatively lowly compared with men performing the same work. As an example, women are paid an average of 62.3% of the men's wage in harvesting and packing in Korea.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Agricultural Machinery Conference
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• 1993.10a
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• pp.1346-1353
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• 1993

Recently , it has been popular for family use to sell a watermelon by the piece such as a half or a quarter. Therefore, it has been necessary to detect and sort out hollow or overripened watermelons before they are shipped. Previously, inspection and rejection of hollow or overripened watermelons were carried out by skilled inspectors with their experience and intuition based on the traditional slapping method. In recent years many inspectors have became older and are going to retire. Thus automatic quality measuring devices have to be developed. There are many reports on the measurement of internal quality for watermelons with non-destructive methods. However, there is no online device to detect and measure both hollow and ripeness of watermelons until now. We have developed the model MWA-9002 online device to detect hollow and measuring the ripeness of watermelons by acoustic impulse. The developed of this devices has enables accurate distinction and rejection at the same level of the skilled inspectors, and also has saved labor. Nowadays nine automatic watermelon sorting and packing facilities applied this device have installed in Japan.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.16-23
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• 2015

In this paper, a survey related to excavation construction activities among national and international construction companies was conducted to evaluate site productivity in construction industry. To analyze the respective productivity levels of each construction company, a benchmarking measures analysis that featured calculations of the performance ratio (PR) and performance management index (PMI) was performed. As a result of these analyses, it has been found that the work performed by local companies was marked by lower productivity and that of international companies was characterized by good productivity. Further analysis of construction workforce resources P% revealed that a construction company's productivity is largely dependent on production capacity and consumption resources, which means that the retention of skilled workers and utilization of high-quality resources yields the highest level of productivity. These results suggest that for a local construction company to be competitive in the construction work market, it must retrain skilled craftspeople, foremen, engineers, and project managers, and strengthen its building capability by leveraging new equipment and technologies.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.1-29
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• 2017

This study compares and analyzes precarious labor market in Korea and Japan in terms of gender and occupational class. Previous studies have analyzed precarious labor limited to the level of employment type such as non-standard workers. This study reconceptualizes precarious labor in terms of the combination of employment relations and income level. In addition. we analyzed whether there are differences in the characteristics of precarious labor between Korea and Japan. In order to analyze the labor market precariousness in Korea. we used data from the 17th Korea Labor Panel Survey (2014) and for Japan. we used the 9th (2012) data from the Keio Household Panel Survey. As a result. we could confirm the feminization of labor market precariousness and horizontal division by occupation in both Korea and Japan. Also. ordered logistic regression analysis showed that the more women. and those in their 60s or older. the less skilled service workers. or the manufacturing workers are likely to face labor market instability in both Korea and Japan. The results of this analysis reflect the fact that Korea and Japan have experienced similar changes in the labor market structure with institutionalized employment protection system based on male workers.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.675-684
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• 2020

To prevent safety accidents caused by aging pipe infrastructure and to maintain water quality, construction projects for water and sewage pipes are actively conducted across Korea. This study analyzed the criteria situations, site survey details, and regulation revisions related to the calculation of construction cost standards for pipe laying and joining work. The analysis showed that the major causes for revision are the unclear construction scope, limitations in implementing some pipe materials due to installation facility types, workforce focused on ordinary labor, limitations of manual laying work, and the lack of tool hire cost and machine expense-calculation criteria. Field studies were conducted to categorize the pipes according to their features, in addition to identifying the use of lifting heavy equipment and light equipment. In addition, excavation and testing work conducted in connection to pipe laying, as well as the use of skilled labor, were investigated. The current study clarified the work scope through new common items, provides an organization based on the pipe material, adjusted the workforce ratio to focus more on skilled labor, and developed grounds for calculating machine expenses. These revisions were estimated to save approximately 1.28% of the construction costs in each project according to an analysis of the construction cost impact study. truction costs in each project, according to an analysis of construction cost impact study.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.67-85
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• 2023

Purpose - This study seeks to investigate the determinants of global sourcing intention in clothing sewing industry, in particular with its focus on women's knit wear production. Design/methodology/approach - This study collected a unique set of qualitative data through 31 in-depth interviews with fashion brands, promotion agencies, and sewing factories between July 2023 and October 2023. In addition, it analyzed the dataset using the MAXQDA to complement the research findings. Findings - We have two findings. First, the interviewees commonly mentioned the following factors as reasons for considering global sourcing: the human factors(aging of skilled technicians and labor shortages), the financial factors(gap in production unit prices at home and abroad), the relational factors(lack of novelty), and the physical factors(loss of production infrastructure and network), while the human factors(skilled workforce), the production factors(delivery date and product quality), and the relational factors(timely communication and mutual trust) as reasons for continuing domestic sourcing. Additional code analysis of interview also supports this finding. On the other hand, there was also a subtle difference between buyers(brands) and suppliers(promotion agencies and processing plants), and buyers consider the exact delivery date critical so that they could see trend-sensitive women's knit wear on time, and suppliers took production costs, labor costs, and labor shortages, which are financial factors, more seriously. Research implications or Originality - This study provides a richer and more balanced view of existing literature, which has generally tended to introduce global sourcing across the clothing industry despite the existence of various diversity within the industry. In addition, through qualitative research, we introduce that the sewing industry is carried out according to complex factors, and by revealing and categorizing the determinants of global sourcing, we supplement the existing research on the clothing sewing industry centered on survey. On a practical note, this study introduces that there is a difference in view of domestic sourcing and global sourcing between buyers(brands) and suppliers(promotion agencies and sewing factories), suggesting practical implications for revitalizing networks and deriving win-win cooperation network models among members in the future.