South Korea to Revamp Training for New Labor Inspectors as Workforce Expands

South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor said it will overhaul training for newly hired labor inspectors to focus on handling real cases, as it moves to sharply expand the inspector workforce through 2028. The ministry said the shift is aimed at strengthening on-the-job response skills, moving away from theory-heavy instruction.

The ministry held a public briefing on Thursday at Seoul Community Masil to present its training reform plan and gather feedback, citing structural changes in the labor inspection system.

The ministry is pursuing a plan to increase the combined central and regional inspector workforce to 8,000 by 2028, from 3,000. It said building inspectors’ capabilities is critical for new policies to work in the field.

Training will be organized around field cases. The ministry said it launched a task force of veteran inspectors in February and analyzed 3.16 million complaint-case records from 2017 to 2025, along with representative cases handled by current inspectors.

New inspectors will learn the redesigned curriculum in stages through a basic school and an investigation school. The basic course covers theory by case type and the workflow and processing structure. The investigation course uses scenario-based mock cases, repeatedly training inspectors to handle a case from start to finish on their own.

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon said, “The success or failure of labor inspection innovation depends on the capabilities of each inspector, completed through training.” He added that the ministry will pursue capacity-building more fundamentally by establishing a specialized training institution for labor inspectors.