Job training provided
for N. Korean defectors
The Korea Herald.
8/19/12 By Yi Whan-woo
The Ministry of
Employment and Labor said Sunday it will offer a special job training program
for North Korean defectors from today to help them adjust to the society in the
South.
The program is
designed to train defectors as welders, construction machinery operators,
computer programming testers and textile workers for hanbok, or traditional
Korean clothing, through five to six months of instruction.
The project comes amid
a growing demand for jobs among the 24,000 North Korean defectors. The ministry
said the number is likely to increase, as up to 3,000 defectors come to the
South every year.
The ministry will
provide four courses for defectors based on their previous work experience.
They will include standard South Korean language, understanding a capitalist
society, how to behave in the workplace, basic computer skills, and foreign
languages.
The program will
accept 100 jobseekers, including 20 for welding that will start today and run
until March 21, 2013. Only men are eligible for the 912-hour program under the
instruction of the Korea Institute of Construction Technology Education in
Incheon.
Volvo Construction
Equipment Korea will manage a 1,158-hour course for the operation of
construction machinery from Sept. 10 to March 8. Thirty selected defectors will
be able to learn how to handle heavy machinery such as forklifts, bulldozers,
backhoes and cranes in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province.
Two courses are
exclusively designed for women. A total of 25 female jobseekers will be able to
take a 960-hour education program on computer programming from Sept. 17 to
March 15 at the career development center run by Samsung SDS, a software firm
under Samsung Group, in southern Seoul.
The association of the
country’s hanbok manufacturers will teach women defectors how to make
traditional clothes for 900 hours from Sept. 10 to March 20.
A North Korean
defector can visit any of the 81 ministry branch offices throughout the country
for consultation.
Each of the 100
trainees will receive instruction for free and will also receive 316,000 won
($278) every month during the training period.
The ministry said it
will help them land a job immediately once they complete the course. It will
also run further programs in the future after assessing the results of this
one.
“We hope to see active
participation by North Korean defectors and we’ll cooperate with the Ministry
of Unification and civic groups for this program to become a success,” an
official said.
Unification said best
way to Korean peace
UPI. 8/19/12
SEOUL, Aug. 19 (UPI)
-- Speakers at an international conference this weekend in South Korea urged
renewed efforts for unification of the two Koreas to address regional
instability.
"A divided Korea
is a legacy of the Cold War that should be resolved for peace and stability in
the region," said National Assembly member Kim Sung-tae, co-chairman of
Korea United, a grassroots movement for unification.
The continued division
hampers regional cooperation and increases instability in the region, said
Chung Tae-ik, former South Korean ambassador to Russia, while North Korea's
nuclear program threatens global stability.
Calling unification a
"historic inevitability," Charles Morrison, president of the
East-West Center, a think tank in Hawaii, said it was necessary for peace and
prosperity in the region.
"I don't think
you can have an Asian-Pacific community without a united Korea," he said.
Morrison also noted
that Korea is the last of the countries broken up as part of the settlement of
World War II that remained divided. He said that the Six Party talks only
addressed the North Korean nuclear issue and not unification.
Moon Hyun-jin,
chairman of the Global Peace Festival, which sponsored the conference, called
unification "the most effective means to peace and prosperity for the
Korean people and the world."
