Naver headquarters [Naver]
Naver headquarters [Naver]

The Korea Labor Foundation and Naver have joined forces to strengthen reemployment support services at small and medium-sized IT enterprises and bolster job security for middle-aged workers.

The Korea Labor Foundation signed an MOU with Naver at the tech company's headquarters Wednesday, agreeing to cooperate on expanding IT industry reemployment support services and stabilizing employment for mid-career workers. The agreement was designed to build an ESG (environmental, social and governance)-based mutual-growth cooperation model in line with the Ministry of Employment and Labor's overhaul of the reemployment support service regime, and to spread IT-specific reemployment services across the broader industry.

Naver had earlier developed South Korea's first IT industry-specific reemployment support service model based on consulting from the foundation. The achievement earned the company a ministerial commendation from the Ministry of Employment and Labor last year.

To extend Naver's model to small and medium-sized enterprises, the foundation launched a new "joint reemployment support consulting project" this year. The initiative combines the operational experience accumulated by a large corporation with the foundation's specialized consulting expertise and transfers that knowledge to smaller firms.

Under the MOU, the two organizations will jointly pursue ESG-based mutual-growth consulting, the spread of the IT industry-specific reemployment support service model, and the strengthening of service operation capacity at small and medium-sized IT firms. A key feature of the partnership is its plan to bring large-company operational know-how and a public institution's professional support system to smaller IT firms that find it relatively difficult to build their own in-house reemployment programs.

Park Jong-pil, secretary-general of the Korea Labor Foundation, said the agreement "is a mutual-growth cooperation model that combines the best operational experience of a large company with the professional support system of a public institution," adding that the foundation would "actively work to continuously expand IT industry-specific reemployment support services so that more small and medium-sized enterprises and mid-career workers can benefit."

Hwang Sun-bae, Naver's chief human resources officer, said "supporting mid-career employees in developing sustainable careers amid the rapidly changing IT industry environment is one of a company's social responsibilities," and pledged to "cooperate so that we can share our experience operating IT-specific reemployment support services with small and medium-sized enterprises and grow together."

The two organizations plan to sustain their cooperation framework, spreading best-practice reemployment support models across the IT industry and supporting employment stability for mid-career workers.


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