Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), which is the ‘big brother’ for government research institutes in scientific technology field, is going to change 73 temporary positions into full-time positions. As a result, situation of KIST will be able to show atmosphere of entire government research institutes in scientific technology field. It is interesting to see what kind of impact KIST will have on other research institutes while they are struggling with their policies on temporary positions.
According to scientific industries on the 25th, KIST recently submitted a draft to Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) regarding its plan of making temporary positions into full-time positions.
KIST calculated that there are 167 people who are subjected to have their temporary positions change into full-time positions and number of regular and continuous positions at 73. It intends to hire employees who work in these 73 positions as full-time employees.
It is also going to change current temporary employees into full-time employees, who will have priority to have their status of their positions to be changed. These temporary employees will become full-time employees after going through minimum screening.
If these temporary employees do not pass the standards of minimum screening, this table of organization (TO) will become vacant. This TO will be opened first to rest of temporary employees out of 167 temporary employees. Employees who are eligible to be converted into full-time employees will be selected through internal competitions. KIST’s intention is to prioritize stable hiring of temporary employees within the institute even though they perform other tasks and duties. If there are not any suitable candidates still, it is going to expand range of hiring to outside candidates and others.
Core of KIST’s plan is based on size of conversion. It is going to calculate number of temporary employees who can be converted into full-time employees and found out TO for regular and continuous positions. It can hire 73 full-time employees from current employees and those who wish to convert status of their positions or be hired.
MSIT is looking at propriety of KIST’s plan. According to guidelines announced by South Korean Government last year, individual government research institutes can establish their own plans of conversation and discuss them with MSIT. When their discussions with MSIT are completed, they can start their conversion process according to their plans.
So far, MSIT does not see any particular problems with a plan submitted by KIST. Although they are going to need additional meetings, there is a great chance that they will agree on size of conversion at least. They need to agree on standards for screening and schedule for conversion additionally. When these additional meetings take place smoothly, KIST then will start to convert temporary employees into full-time employees.
“KIST’s current plan is a draft that is limited to size of conversion. It seems that there will not be any special procedural deviations.” said a representative for MSIT. “Its plan for conversion that includes method of selection and standards for screening will go through additional meetings.”
Process of converting temporary positions into full-time employees by government research institutes has become regularized after President Moon Jae-in’s government was established. Government research institutes are converting temporary employees into full-time employees and converting indirectly-hired employees into directly-hired employees. In order to support conversion process that is suitable for characteristics of government research institutes, MSIT prepared a ‘guideline for converting temporary positions into full-time positions’ in last October.
This guideline presents standards for understanding regular and continuous positions and sets stable hiring of current employees as its core principle. Only when there are reasonable grounds, one can introduce ‘competitive hiring’ according to conversion committee’s decision. MSIT ordered research institutes to finish their conversion process by end of March.
Conversion process by research institutes has been quite slow. Only Green Technology Center (GTC), Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI), Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS), Korea Railroad Research Institute (KRRI), and Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) out of 25 research institutes under National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST) submitted their plans. Schedules presented as targets were foundered in the first place. Progress of converting temporary or indirectly-hired employees into full-time employees is almost nonexistent.
Staff Reporter Song, Junyoung | songjy@etnews.com