Kim Young-hoon, minister of Employment and Labor, checks the apparent temperature at a logistics center loading and unloading site to assess heat-wave preparedness. The Ministry of Employment and Labor ordered immediate improvements for deficiencies including the installation of thermohygrometers and the expansion of rest facilities. [Ministry of Employment and Labor]
Kim Young-hoon, minister of Employment and Labor, checks the apparent temperature at a logistics center loading and unloading site to assess heat-wave preparedness. The Ministry of Employment and Labor ordered immediate improvements for deficiencies including the installation of thermohygrometers and the expansion of rest facilities. [Ministry of Employment and Labor]

The government plans to build a regional safety management framework for the Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province area, bringing together local governments, labor and management, and occupational safety agencies to reduce industrial accidents.

More than nine in 10 workplaces in the region employ fewer than 50 workers — a segment with comparatively weaker safety management capacity. The initiative will strengthen joint inspections at micro-scale construction and logging sites while providing integrated support, including safety assessments and working-environment improvements, to aging and chemical industrial complexes.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor and the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency held the "Daegu-North Gyeongsang Industrial Safety and Health Governance Roundtable" at EXCO in Daegu on Tuesday to discuss ways to reduce workplace accidents in the region.

Small workplaces with fewer than 50 employees account for 96.1 percent of all businesses in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. Fatal accidents rose last year but have been declining this year through cooperation with local governments. The government said it intends to sustain that trend by strengthening regional collaboration.

The approach centers on jointly managing small workplaces — which are difficult to reach through administrative channels alone — by enlisting local governments, labor and business groups, occupational safety agencies, and labor safety organizations.

Tuesday's meeting discussed sharing work-site information across agencies and conducting joint inspections at micro-scale construction and logging sites, where fatal accidents occur frequently in the Daegu and North Gyeongsang area. Participants also agreed to promote a "safety pledge" campaign to raise safety awareness on the ground.

Support measures for aging and chemical industrial complexes were also on the agenda. The government and relevant agencies plan to roll out an integrated support program linking safety assessments, environmental improvements and training for those complexes, and to define the specific role each agency will play.

The government placed particular emphasis on narrowing the safety gap that emerges along company-size lines. The plan calls for tightening regulations and accountability for larger firms with established safety management capacity and resources — to encourage safety investment — while expanding technical and financial support for small workplaces that lack specialist personnel and information.

Ryu Hyeon-cheol, head of the ministry's Industrial Safety and Health Bureau, said reducing industrial accidents requires both support and regulation to work in tandem — "the carrot and the stick" — and called for closing what he described as the "risk gap" that varies by company size and employment type.

He added that even sound policies and support programs produce little effect if they fail to reach the workplace. "Local governments' administrative networks, labor and management's on-the-ground connections, the expertise of safety and health agencies, and the experience of labor safety organizations must all serve as conduits linking policy and support all the way down to small workplaces," he said.

The government said it intends to run the regional industrial safety and health governance framework not merely as a mechanism for assigning responsibility after accidents occur, but as a preventive system that shares early warning signs of workplace hazards. It plans to build a regional accident-prevention network by linking work-site information sharing, joint inspections, safety assessments, working-environment improvements, and training and support programs.


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