21 officials from Bangladesh, Bhutan and Maldives invited for capacity-building training Monday through Friday

Field visits to university, employment center; country-specific action plans to be developed

Korea Labor Foundation [The Herald Business]
Korea Labor Foundation [The Herald Business]

The Korea Labor Foundation will share South Korea's experience in digital employment services and youth job support with Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives, aiming to help each country improve its public employment services so young people who have completed education and vocational training can more smoothly enter the labor market.

The foundation said Monday it is holding a public employment service capacity-building training program for 21 government officials from the three South Asian nations at M Gallery Seoul, running Monday through Friday.

The training is part of a public employment service capacity-building project for five South Asian countries led by the Asian Development Bank. The five participating countries are Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal.

The foundation earlier held a first round of training from Sept. 14 to 18, hosting 10 civil servants from Sri Lanka's Ministry of Labour's Manpower and Employment Bureau. That session identified five priority policy challenges: fragmented labor market information, insufficient expertise among staff, a mismatch between education and vocational training and actual labor market demand, limited and dispersed access to career guidance services, and inadequate tracking of employment outcomes.

In this second round, officials from the three countries will compare their current employment service operations and policy challenges, and explore ways to apply South Korea's policy experience to their own national contexts.

Core topics include the development of South Korea's public employment service system, the central-to-regional service delivery structure, the Labor Market Information System, and the rollout and operation of "Go-yong 24" — the country's digital employment service platform. Sessions will also cover AI-based employment services, the use of employment administration statistics, links between vocational education and training and employment services, and policies supporting youth career development and the transition from school to the labor market.

Field visits to a university and a regional employment center are also on the schedule. Participants will visit the career and employment support center at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies to observe how the institution helps students with career planning and job preparation. At the Seoul Northern Employment and Welfare Plus Center, they will see how regional employment services are delivered, including job counseling, placement assistance and referrals to vocational training.

Each country's delegation will also share the current state of its labor market information system, available employment statistics, data gaps and improvement needs. On the final day, Friday, participants will draw up country-specific action plans outlining priority policy tasks and directions based on the lectures, field visits and discussions held throughout the week.

The foundation plans to take part in stakeholder workshops to be held across South Asia next year, supporting governments, employment service agencies and education and training institutions as they assess the feasibility of proposed policies and develop country-specific policy road maps.

"The measure of success for public employment services lies not just in having good systems in place, but in ensuring that young people and job seekers can actually receive the support they need in practice," said Park Jong-pil, secretary general of the Korea Labor Foundation. "We hope this training will serve as an opportunity to translate South Korea's policy and on-the-ground experience into concrete directions for improving employment services across South Asia."


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