[단독]’Unqualified’ civil servant passed?… Special investigation due to ‘recruitment noise’ in organizations affiliated with Daegu city

As the noise of recruitment in organizations connected to the City of Daegu rose, the city launched a special investigation. Daegu City recently relaxed the qualification standards for hiring staff, saying it would select excellent talent, but there are criticisms that it has revealed the limits of transparency and fairness.

According to the coverage of Kyunghyang Shinmun on the 20th, as a result of the recruitment of general staff in the second half of this year led by the Daegu Agricultural and Fishery Products Distribution Management Group, Mr. A, the current public servant of Daegu City, was on the final list of successful candidates. It was found that Mr A applied for and was accepted into an experienced position.

Daegu City is investigating whether the qualifications for the job submitted by Mr. A are met. Looking at the Korea Agriculture and Fisheries Trade Organization’s recruitment publication, the ‘experience, qualifications or occupations eligible for employment’ for the relevant level limits that apply to those with ○ level or higher civil servant experience.

In relation to experience in the private sector, experience in the same position at a government-funded institution or experience as a full-time university lecturer or higher is said to be assessed. This can be replaced if you work for a certain period as a manager in a related field at a private company.

However, it was determined that Mr A’s current civil servant status was below qualification standards. In this regard, a Daegu municipal official explained, “Mr. A applied by citing private qualifications rather than civil service level standards.”

Daegu Agriculture and Fisheries Distribution Corporation has been hiring workers for the second half of the year since last August. A total of 17 experienced and new staff were recruited, including two experienced level 2 team leaders (Distribution Operations Team 1, Facilities Management Team) and two experienced level 3 (office) team leaders (Investigation Office, Distribution Operations Team 2).

Recruitment was done through written tests and interview after document screening. However, only in-depth interviews were conducted for team (office) leaders with level 2 to 3 experience after document screening. Mr. A was informed that he was accepted based on documents and interview only.

Daegu City explained that during this recruitment, employees were selected through employees within the Korea Agriculture and Fisheries Trade Organization and officials from outside companies. The last successful candidate was announced on the 13th. At the time, Daegu City considered it suspicious that Mr. A, a current civil servant, was included in the list of successful applicants, and immediately initiated a special investigation.

Daegu City is investigating whether Mr. A’s civilian experience meets the criteria for the employment position. It is expected that Mr. A’s company would work for him and the work he did will be verified in detail.

It is reported that the city will review the entire hiring process through an audit by the end of this week. Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo also ordered a special investigation of the related affiliated organizations at a management meeting held on the 20th.

Daegu Agriculture and Fisheries Product Management was officially launched in January. After the opening of the Daegu Agricultural and Fishery Wholesale Market in 1988, the management entity was changed to a local public corporation for the first time in 36 years. This is the first case of its kind in the country, and it received attention as a model of regulatory innovation at the time of its launch.

Meanwhile, Daegu City announced last July that it would remove regional residency restrictions when hiring employees from Daegu City and its affiliates to attract top talent. In terms of related organizations, there are four targets, including the Agricultural and Fisheries Products Distribution Management Group, Daegu Transportation Corporation, Urban Development Corporation, and Facility Management Corporation. Accordingly, the Korea Agriculture, Fisheries and Trade Organization removed regional restrictions in this recruitment.

Kim Jeong-seop, director of the Daegu City Economic Bureau, said, “It seems that there was a problem during the document review process, such as private sector experience (when they were hiring),” and said , “It’s hard to go into. It’s being verified right now by the investigative department,” he said.