Labor Ministry to crack down on gender discrimination in job recruitment

A job advertisement for a part-time position hangs in front of a store in Seoul on Jan. 15. [YONHAP]

The Ministry of Employment and Labor will screen gender discriminatory job postings more actively this year.

Of the 14,000 job postings uploaded on career websites in September 2022 that were monitored by the Labor Ministry in October and November, 924 were found to have included gender discriminatory phrases, according to a report released Wednesday.

Examples of such phrases read "Good looking male taller than 172 centimeters [5 feet, 8 inches]," "Packaging job — 110,000 won [$90] per hour for male, 97,000 won for female."

Many of the 924 discriminatory postings offered the position exclusively to a specific gender and preferred one sex over the other without providing a logical reason.

Of the 924 postings, 811 violated the labor law that enforces gender equality in employment.

The Labor Ministry booked one company that re-uploaded a gender discriminatory job posting even after it had received a written warning in 2020 for the same reason. The other 810 companies either received a written warning or were instructed to edit the post.

The current law forbids employers from hiring employees based on their gender, looks, height or weight that are irrelevant to performing assigned duties. It also stipulates equal pay for equal work in the same workplace. Violators can be fined up to 5 million won.

"From this year, the number of monitored postings will increase to 20,000 from the current 14,000, and the ministry will conduct two monitorings annually, instead of one, in order to get rid of gender discrimination in the recruiting process," the Ministry of Employment and Labor announced in a press release.

BY KIM JI-HYE [sohn.dongjoo@joongang.co.kr]