Following Series of Sanitation Worker Fatalities, Kang Hoon-sik States, "Workplaces Must Not Become Sites of Death"... Orders Safety Measures

An average of 836 workplace accidents per year over the past three years
Widespread exceptions to 'three-person teams' and 'daytime shifts' under review
Knowledge industry center vacancy rate at 44%
Comprehensive measures including use conversion required

On September 7, Hoon-sik Kang, Chief of Staff to the President, instructed relevant ministries to identify the reasons why the principles of 'three-person team work' and 'daytime shifts' are not being properly observed on-site in the wake of a series of recent sanitation worker fatalities. He also ordered them to establish effective safety measures.

Kang Hoon-sik, Chief of Staff to the President, Yonhap News Agency

At the Blue House that day, Chief Kang presided over a meeting of senior secretaries and aides, referring to the recent recurring deaths of sanitation workers in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, and Seoul. He stated, "The workplace, a place people go to earn a living, must not become a site of death," and called for concrete government action. According to government figures, workplace accidents involving sanitation workers averaged 836 cases per year between 2023 and the previous year. The government mandated 'three-person team work' and 'daytime shifts' for sanitation workers starting in December 2019 to enhance safety, but the Blue House assessed that exceptions are being widely made in real-world settings.

Chief Kang pointed out that the recurring accidents stem from structural problems rather than merely simple oversight by individual worksites or local governments. He instructed related ministries, including the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Employment and Labor, and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, to examine why work principles are failing to function on the ground, as well as the current state of exception applications, and to swiftly draw up corrective measures.

Additionally, Chief Kang called for fundamental institutional reforms regarding knowledge industry centers, which are facing increasing concerns over insolvency risk due to the surging number of vacant units. The Blue House diagnosed that since around 2020, against a backdrop of low interest rates and a real estate investment boom, excessive profit-seeking by contractors and developers, combined with indiscriminate approvals by some local governments, have led to a sharp increase in supply.

Indeed, over the past three years, the average unsold rate for newly constructed knowledge industry centers has reached 27 percent, and the vacancy rate stands at 44 percent. In some regions with poor location conditions, the vacancy rate exceeds 70 percent, with some properties effectively left abandoned as "ghost buildings."

Chief Kang stressed in particular, "People are being deceived by false or exaggerated advertisements, leading to damages from pre-sale fraud and partitioned resale." He emphasized that only fundamental reforms can solve the problem, not makeshift remedies. He directed related ministries, including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, to swiftly prepare a 'Comprehensive Plan for Vacancy Reduction and Institutional Reform in Knowledge Industry Centers.' The plan should include proactive promotion of use conversion to resolve vacancies, revamping tenant qualification and business categories in line with industry trends, and establishing a management and oversight framework designed to prevent the vicious cycle of "pre-sale followed by neglect."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.