Korea Teachers' Mutual Aid Association [Yonhap]
Korea Teachers' Mutual Aid Association [Yonhap]

Mutual aid associations, major players in Korea's financial investment industry, are growing uneasy as the government accelerates plans for a second round of public institution relocations outside Seoul.

Inside and outside the associations, attention is focused on the National Pension Service's fund management headquarters, which moved to Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, in 2017. Even the NPS has struggled to secure qualified investment professionals since the move.

An analysis of hiring results posted on the public institution recruitment information system shows that over the past three years, the NPS fund management division filled only slightly more than half of its planned investment staff positions through experienced-hire recruitment.

In 2023, the NPS planned to hire 87 fund management professionals across three recruitment rounds, but only 55 candidates passed the final selection — a fill rate of 63.2 percent. In 2024, the service posted job openings six separate times, yet filled only 82 of the 157 planned positions, for a fill rate of 52.2 percent.

The situation showed little improvement in 2025. The NPS planned to hire 80 people across three rounds but selected only 43, a fill rate of 53.8 percent. In the first round of 2026, 18 of 26 advertised positions were filled, pushing the fill rate to 69.2 percent — but the service still fell short of its target.

The NPS does not hire applicants who lack the required experience and expertise, even when candidates apply. The persistent shortfall points to a serious mismatch between the qualifications the NPS demands and the pool of candidates actually applying.

In the asset management industry, working in Jeonju is widely seen as one of the key factors constraining the NPS's ability to attract talent. When the NPS was based in Seoul in the early 2010s, competition ratios ran into double digits; recently, they are understood to hover around three or four applicants per opening.

Officials at mutual aid associations are watching the NPS experience closely. With financial professionals concentrated in Seoul, a regional relocation is seen as likely to trigger serious difficulties in recruiting skilled fund managers. The concern is that if the NPS — which manages 1,000 trillion won ($707 billion) — is already struggling to hire, conditions for mutual aid associations after a potential relocation would be even worse.

"The fund managers on the front lines of investment are typically people in their 30s and 40s who have built careers at securities firms, asset managers and private equity funds," an official at a pension fund and mutual aid association said. "If we relocate to the regions, hiring will become extremely difficult. The loss of staff who have already built their lives in Seoul will also be a major problem."

The Korea Teachers' Mutual Aid Association and the Korea Local Administration Mutual Aid Association recently adopted a resolution opposing relocation and sent it to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The two associations are major institutional investors, managing 85 trillion won and 37 trillion won in assets, respectively.

The two associations emphasize that, unlike other public institutions, mutual aid associations receive no government budget or grants — they are mutual-aid bodies — and therefore should not be classified as public institutions subject to relocation. As organizations focused on managing members' assets and generating investment returns, they argue that the location of their headquarters directly affects their ability to recruit staff and produce returns.

Mutual aid associations are large institutional investors that allocate capital across domestic and overseas shares and bonds as well as alternative assets such as private equity funds, real estate and infrastructure. Alternative investments in particular require continuous information exchange with domestic and overseas fund managers, investment banks, securities firms and accounting firms from the deal-sourcing stage onward. Physical proximity to Seoul's financial community plays a significant role in conducting due diligence, obtaining timely market intelligence and attracting top investment talent.


park.jiyeong@heraldcorp.com