Labor minister addresses G-20 meeting of labor and employment ministers

Mr. Yim Tae Hee delivered his speech titled “training strategy and green jobs” at the international G-20 meeting of labor and employment ministers on April 21 in Washington. In his speech the Korean labor minister emphasized the importance of occupational skills development that can adeptly respond to the demands of changing market environment such as clean energy and environmental sector. He also proposed that the G-20 countries should strengthen their support to developing countries in the area of vocational training.

After the global financial crisis, there was a call for a close international collaboration to deal with the challenges of employment and labor issues. Hence the US president Obama requested his secretary of labor to convene the ministerial meeting in 2010, at the Pittsburgh summit meeting.

The G-20 meeting of labor and employment ministers is the only global meeting of ministers, other than that of finance ministers, which was requested by the leaders of G-20 countries.

The participants adopted the result of discussions for the last two days as recommendation to G-20 summits. The ministers of employment and labor visited the White House and directly delivered the recommendation to president Obama.

Mr. Yim introduced the Korean government’s policy responses to the crisis that were committed to widen job opportunities with an expanded financial spending, to reach historical agreement among labor, management, government and civic groups and to support vulnerable groups for jobs. He emphasized that the Korean government had established the “national employment strategy” to boost governmental capacity for employment, and that his ministry of labor had reshaped itself to focus on the employment related issues that become the prime national tasks.

He stressed the importance of future education and training in clean energy and environmental industry in order to actively respond to the changed demands of market in post-crisis economy, and introduced the Korean government’s plan to nurture green human resources.

In addition, the minister made a statement on the global responsibility of advanced countries through pioneering efforts to support developing countries and address the problem of global development imbalances. He noted that the support of occupational skills development in those developing countries could be one of the viable solutions.

During the session Mr. Yim met the next chairing country Canada’s labor minister and other representatives from core countries. He discussed international cooperation for employment and labor issues and asked help for G20 summit meeting in Seoul that is to be held in November.

Mr. Yim also attended the Korea-America business people’s meeting on April 21 and had interview with the Bloomberg on the 22nd to explain the industrial relations and employment labor policy in Korea as an effort to attract foreign investments.

* Government press release (Apr. 23)