Non-profit foundation set up to aid jobless youth

Economy

Published: 07 Oct. 2015, 21:05

Non-profit foundation set up to aid jobless youth

The government plans to take its youth employment fund program to another level by establishing a non-profit foundation by end of this month.

The proposal is a follow-up measure after the government last month established a donation-based youth employment fund under President Park Geun-hye’s leadership, aimed at offering grants to young job seekers to receive vocational, entrepreneurship and other job-seeking training.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, almost 4.3 billion won ($3.69 million) has been contributed to the fund by about 54,000
people.

Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn and Labor Minister Lee Ki-kweon announced the plan and how the youth employment fund will be used, on Wednesday.

“After President Park started donations late last month, major figures from business, politics, the religious circle, arts and sports, as well as regular neighbors, like small business owner operators and shoe shiners, have shown their support via donation,” said Hwang.

“Using the fund, the government will structure the new foundation’s business to offer assistance to those young people who so far haven’t been able to benefit from existing assistance systems.”

The foundation will open at the Gwanghwamun Post Office building by the end of this month.

The foundation’s job is to operate the fund by picking job seekers who need financial help and give them necessary financial assistance, and offer job-seeking assistance.

It aims to offer help in all phases, from information gathering to skills training and evaluating the trainees by opening a job training academy.

The main beneficiaries will be college graduates who majored in humanities and arts. The academy hopes to provide free hands-on skills trainings such as foreign language, software or animation drawing, so that the humanities majors can apply for skill-based industries.

These training programs will be operated by a group of independent professionals in job training, entrepreneurship and job skills.

Some job market insiders criticized the foundation’s programs as being too similar to existing job assistance programs.

However, the Employment Ministry said that the foundation will provide services that the existing state-run programs couldn’t offer, mainly due to budget shortage.

BY KIM JI-YOON [kim.jiyoon@joongang.co.kr]