South Korea to Host the 2022 Employment Promotion Award for Persons with Disabilities
The 2022 Employment Promotion Award for Persons with Disabilities was held at the JW Marriott Hotel in
Seoul at 3 p.m. on April 14, hosted by the Ministry of Employment and Labor (Minister: An, Kyung Duk) and
organized by the Korea Employment Agency for Persons with Disabilities(KEAD) (President: Hyanghyeon
Cho).
This event, which marked 32nd anniversary this year, intends to reward employers who have contributed to
promoting the employment of persons with disabilities, employees with disabilities as well as those in
charge of hiring persons with disabilities.
In celebration of the April Employment Promotion Campaign Period for the Disabled, this year's event took
place offline and also virtually on the two-way communication platform of Metaverse, and YouTube to
prevent the spread of COVID-19.
In the presence of award winners, the offline ceremony was conducted in compliance with the
government's social distancing guidelines and thorough virus prevention measures.
In addition, a Metaverse event was set up to enable the families of award winners and award-winning
company executives and employees to virtually participate. The event was also broadcast in real time so
that the meaning and joy of employing persons with disabilities was shared by more people.
At this event, a total of 30 people were given eight government awards, including Orders of Iron Tower
Industrial Service Merit and Industrial Service Medals, and 22 Ministerial Citations of Employment and
Labor.
The honorary Iron Tower Industrial Service Merit went to Young-Jin Kim, Chief Executive Officer at KT
Hopemate Co., Ltd., and the Industrial Service Medal was awarded to Ji-hyun Lee, Branch Director of
Netmarble E2 Co., Ltd.
① Since appointed as the first CEO of KT Hopemate, KT's subsidiary-type standard workplace, Young-jin
Kim has made various efforts to create suitable jobs for persons with disabilities.
As of December 2021, 136 workers with disabilities out of all 181 employees are working full-time, of which
89% are severely disabled.
In addition, KEAD's various systems have been employed to hire support personnel including job
instructors, labor assistants, sign language interpreters, and social workers, and support auxiliary
engineering devices and convenience facilities to help disabled workers adapt to work and live a stable job.
The company has repealed a personnel level system in order to resolve discrimination against people with
disabilities, and is promoting harmony and unity among employees by including disabled workers to
members of its labor-management council.
The company also received an award of the Comfortable Workplace of the Year in 2021 in recognition of its
efforts to create a friendly work environment for the disabled, such as converting manual doors into
automatic and removing barriers.
② Ji-hyun Lee, the winner of the Industrial Service Medal, was recognized for her contribution to improving
awareness about the disabled as a game graphic expert with severe hearing loss. She has developed
graphic images of major games such as Everyone's a Superhero at Marvel, Catch Mind, Green Village, and
Merge Kuya Island.
She enhanced the company's development capabilities through work research and development (R&D), and
had a positive effect on improving an awareness of employing the disabled by demonstrating her
leadership skills in guiding colleagues in and out of work.
In addition, she has been making practical efforts to hire people with disabilities by providing voluntary
mentoring so that her colleagues with severe disabilities can adapt well to their work.
Her achievements and efforts had a positive impact on the entire organization. As a result, five Netmarble
companies came together to establish the Join Hands Network, a subsidiary-type standard business for the
disabled.
Presidential Citations went to Jeong-taek Lim, Chairman of Ilshin Vitson Co., Ltd., and Myung-geun Kim, an
employee of the Plus Medical Foundation Danwon Hospital.
① The chairman of the leading distribution company in the electricity sector has proactively expanded the
employment of persons with disabilities by providing preferential hiring for the severely disabled and
developing employment models in the production and logistics process.
In particular, his continuous efforts to create jobs for persons with severe disabilities resulted in the
proportion of these workers reaching 93.75% of all employees with disabilities as of December 2021.
② Myung-geun Kim, who is in charge of patient transfer at the Plus Medical Foundation Danwon Hospital,
was awarded in recognition of his contribution to improving an awareness of the disabled.
He has enhanced the hospital's image by providing friendly services such as helping patients with difficulty
in moving and befriending them. He has been working for 13 years at the hospital thanks to his steady
self-improvement.
In addition to this, he has been striving to improve an awareness about employing persons with disabilities.
He appeared in a promotional video to increase the public awareness of hiring disabled people, which was
produced by the Ansan Welfare Center, and participated in mentoring programs for interns at the center
and high school students.
A concert entitled Value Gathering toward Tomorrow was followed to celebrate the event by both the
disabled and non-disabled.
The theme song was released at the site, featuring vocalist HEX of 01OB, blind singer So-jung Lee, and
musical actor Hee Joo, together with various people of all ages, disabled and non-disabled, on the screen.
Minister Ahn said, "Your footprints will serve as guidance not only for your life, but also for many younger
workers with disabilities."
He added, "As the slogan of today's event indicates, the government will continue working hard to create
'Tomorrow' where persons with disabilities can exercise their capabilities in the wider playground of jobs
and the 'value' of labor will be better recognized."