대내외 경제위기에 따른 한국 공공고용서비스 정책의 변화

Until the 1980s, the Public Employment Service (PES) in South Korea did not have proper policy measures. Over the last 30 years, however, the PES in South Korea has developed rapidly in the face of internal and external economic crises. Through the labor market crises in the early 1990s, the Employment Insurance Act and the Framework Act on the Employment Policy were enacted, and, in 1998, when the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis began to affect Korea, the Employment Security Center, the predecessor of the current Employment Center, was established. With worries based on low growth beginning in the early and mid-2000s, the employment service advancement plans were implemented, and customized employment services were provided. Furthermore, the Employment Success Package was introduced after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and the National Employment Support System was introduced after the outbreak of COVID-19. Attempts to adopt the two policies were unsuccessful prior to the economic crisis, but each policy was adopted within months after the occurrence of the economic crisis. Such exogeneity of the economic crisis and the sharp discontinuity of the policy adoption provide suggestive evidence that the economic crisis, which is the major change in the policy environment, affected the changes in the PES. In addition, the government that conducted the policy analysis is not the same as the government in which the program was adopted. This result shows that Korea's PES has developed based on the scientific and politically neutral policy analysis and mutual understanding of desirable policy directions among previous governments.