• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2019.11a
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• pp.46-47
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• 2019

The construction industry has a higher dependency on manpower than other industries, requiring a supply of high quality skilled workers. But negative perceptions regarding the construction industry have continued to reduce the inflow of young workers into the industry, and the existing skilled workforce is aging. In response, as a solution for training young construction skilled manpower, training programs for young construction skilled workers have been implemented by specialized high schools. But the current status of career paths chosen by the graduates of these specialized high schools did not show a substantial influx of workers into the construction industry. In this regard, with the purpose of promoting an influx of young construction skilled manpower into the industry, this study analyzed the goals and problems of construction education in specialized high schools in South Korea, and suggested a method for improvement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2020.06a
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• pp.224-225
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• 2020

The construction industry is a workforce dependent industry. However, problems with wages have occurred frequently from the past to the present, and the number of skilled workers is decreasing due to the influx of new skilled workers and the departure of existing skilled workers. In response, this paper surveyed the actual status of wage calculation and analyzed the problems and presented a rough improvement plan by surveying the functional personnel of domestic frameworks.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.163-169
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• 2020

Construction is a typical labor-dependent industry. However, problems related to wage payment, which directly affects the livelihood of workers, have caused other problems in maintaining skilled workers, such as increasing the turnover rate of skilled workers, resulting in a shortage of skilled workers. Against this backdrop, this study was conducted to develop measures to improve the conventional wage payment systems in order to prevent skilled workers from leaving their jobs and to maintain them as workers. It is necessary to make the registration of non-registered small-sized construction companies in Korea mandatory, and to introduce means by which construction companies that hire workers through non-registered agents can be penalized. In addition, the project bank account (PBA) system used in the domestic banking sector can be benchmarked in operating payment systems, an approach that is expected to effectively prevent delayed wage payments in the construction industry.

• International conference on construction engineering and project management
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• 2015.10a
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• pp.142-146
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• 2015

Human resources development is considered a critical issue for improving productivity of workers in construction industry. The aim of this study is to identify and rank the key motivating factors that impact skilled workers productivity according to their relative importance. A total of 27 factors were identified through a literature review, which were categorized into 2 group financial and un-financial motivators. A questionnaire instrument was adopted in this study. The study revealed that the most significant group which affected skilled workers' productivity in construction projects was financial group with the recognition of the un-financial group importance. The results emphasized that the financial group has an edge over the un-financial group which reflect the priority of need for the respondents. The results indicated that the un-financial group represents a backbone in its importance after the financial group which reflects that un-financial factors can improve productivity. The findings showed that the provision of companies to safety conditions factor such as protective safety clothing and protective equipment was ranked very low by the respondents. This is due to the dominant culture of the workers as well as the lack of their awareness regarding their own safety and lack of companies' interest in safety and health for workers. Construction companies are advised to take the key motivating factors obtained from the results of this study into serious consideration in order to improve the satisfaction of their workers and improve their productivity.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2021.05a
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• pp.30-31
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• 2021

The construction industry is an industry in which skilled construction workers should be secured and trained because of the quality and productivity of buildings, but the negative image makes it difficult to supply and demand skilled construction workers. In response, this study derived the factors influencing the intention of transferring construction workers to other occupations and investigated ways to improve the prevention of leaving other occupations by age of construction workers. The factors influencing the turnover of construction workers have also been derived, and work overload, salary, workplace stability, and employment competitiveness have a significant impact on the intention of new employees to change jobs. According to a survey on ways to improve the prevention of leaving other jobs, those in their 20s and 30s are "improving working conditions, such as providing holidays, paying overtime, compliance with working hours," and those in their 50s and 60s.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2020.11a
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• pp.117-118
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• 2020

The construction industry is an industry heavily dependent on manpower, and high-quality skilled workers are needed to ensure smooth construction. However, workers who entered the construction industry did not acquire professional skills or receive other education through apprenticeship education. In this study, the necessity of professional functional education and education plan were analyzed and presented in order to cultivate quality functional manpower.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.1-22
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• 2023

With the restriction of foreigners' entry into Korea due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fishery industry faced significant challenges in supplying migrant workers. In response to this, there is growing interest in methods that could facilitate the stable employment of migrant workers. This paper investigates whether the current system used for the employment of migrant workers in the fishery industry, which is highly dependent on them, adequately performs its function of providing a stable and skilled workforce amid the intensified labor shortage resulting from decreasing numbers of households with employment in the fishery and the aging Korean fishermen. To this end, past studies and government documents pertaining to the current system were analyzed, and a survey targeting the owners of offshore fishing boats that employ migrant workers was conducted. A total of 147 owners of fishing boats responded to the survey, and the data of 499 migrant workers employed by them were used for the analysis. The analysis indicated that the migrant fishermen had difficulty in acquiring minimum scores for the change of visa status according to the criteria for the Skilled Worker Points System. Furthermore, distinct differences were found between the characteristics and working conditions of migrant workers employed through the Employment Permit System (EPS) and the Foreign Seamen System. Based on this result, this paper suggests the reorganization of the skilled migrant worker system in the fishery industry and the expansion of the regional specialized visa pilot project.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.1-39
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• 2007

This study focuses on the possibility that skill-biased technological change is one of the factors for relatively poor employment conditions of the unskilled after the economic crisis. Increasing employment share of skilled workers accompanying with rising wage premium for education since implies that labor demand has shifted toward the skilled. The decomposition of changes in wage share of skilled workers into between-industry and within-industry changes suggests that the increase in the demand for skilled labor has been largely due to within-industry changes, which can be seen as reflecting the effect of the skill-biased technological change. Also the regression results indicate that the employment share of skilled workers has more rapidly increased in the industries with higher ICT (Information Communication Technology) investment intensity since the mid 1990s, hinting to the possibility that skill-biased technological changes may have come from ICT.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.223-233
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• 2020

Problems related to wages in the construction industry, which directly affect the livelihood of workers, have caused other problems in maintaining skilled workers, such as decreasing the inflow of new laborers and increasing the outflow of the existing labor force, which has weakened the foundation of industrial production. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to improve the current wage calculation system in order to increase the inflow of new laborers and maintain the existing skilled workers. It is necessary to differentiate the minimum wage in the construction industry, which requires a high intensity of labor, by industry and occupation type. It is also necessary to establish standards for specifically calculating wages, such as holiday work and overtime pay. The standard of the current retirement mutual aid fund needs to be upwardly adjusted at the same time.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.87-133
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• 2012

This paper consists of two parts. The first part introduces a simple endogenous growth model. It is based on Romer(1990), but extends the original model by incorporating individual workers skill heterogeneity. Based on the heterogeneity, the model has a labor allocation mechanism between skilled (research) and unskilled (production) sectors. Different from Romer(1990), the labor allocation is determined by both demand and supply conditions of the economy. The endogenous growth model presented in this paper shows how the shape of the distribution of human capital affects on the labor allocation, hence on the employment structure, wage profile and economic growth. The model can be extended to an open economy. With the heterogeneity, the extended model explains distributional effect as well as growth effect of the economic openness. The second part provides empirical evidence in support of the extension part of the model presented in the first part. Based on the endogenous growth framework as proposed by Romer(1990) and Rivera-Batiz and Romer(1991), the model explains how economic openness affects labor allocation between skilled and unskilled sectors. According to the model, economic openness can affect labor allocation through two channels; knowledge spillover and specialization. First, the openness promotes knowledge spillover and hence increases the productivity of workers in the skilled sectors. This makes the economy employs more workers in the skilled sector. On the other hand, the openness causes global specialization which leads more employment in the skilled sector for the developed countries but at the same time, leads less employment in the skilled sector for the developing countries since the developing countries have comparative advantages in the unskilled sector. The empirical results obtained using cross country panel data in this paper support these two effects of knowledge spillover and specialization.