Local Governments Struggle to “Win the Wavering Hearts of Rookie Civil Servants”

Ham Myung-joon (seventh from left, bottom row), the county mayor of Goseong-gun, Gangwon-do, takes a picture after talking with 35 grade-8 civil servants while inspecting the facilities at the Unification Observation Tower on May 16. Courtesy of the Goseong-gun office

“You will find many unfamiliar terms and will often face situations where you are not sure which regulation to abide by when performing your task.... You can adjust smoothly when you refer to your senior officials’ know-how on life in public office.”

These sentences are from the first part of A Guide for Rookie Civil Servants: How to Adapt to Life in Public Office, produced by the Pyeongchang-gun office in Gangwon-do and scheduled to be distributed by this coming July to help new civil servants adapt to public office.

The 45-page booklet, created by ten employees currently active in the Task Innovation Club in the Pyeongchang-gun office, is composed of five sections: attitude, one’s personal growth, salary and bonuses, leave and working hours, and know-how on adapting to public office.

The salary and bonuses section explains, “The monthly salary of a grade-9 local government official hired this year (salary class-1) is at least 2.36 million won (annual salary of 28.31 million won), and the expected salary after five years based on the premise that she is promoted to grade-8 is 3.47 million won (annual salary of 41.66 million won, based on a 2.6% increase in basic wages for five years),” and explains in detail that when various bonuses and allowances are added, the actual wage the civil servants receive will be higher than the amount stated.

The booklet includes all the expertise necessary to lead a life in public office, such as how to manage performance and positions, as well as basic job and promotion policies that a rookie civil servant needs to know. Pyeongchang-gun plans to create and distribute various forms and manuals, which new civil servants often have trouble with, in the second half of this year.

Lower-level local governments like Pyeongchang-gun first began to take special care of rookie civil servants because applications for civil servants have been declining every year and a stream of rookie officials have been submitting their resignations. This is also why Sim Jae-kook, the county mayor of Pyeongchang-gun announced, “I will create an organization where new civil servants want to work” ahead of distributing the booklet.

The average competition in the Gangwon-do local civil servant examination recently dropped considerably from 16.7:1 in 2013 to 9.52:1 in 2019 and 8.85:1 in 2022. This year, only 6,657 people applied for the local civil servant examination, conducted to recruit 894 officials in 29 fields. The competition was only 7.45:1. Given that only 75.7% of the applicants on average took the examination, the actual competition was even lower at 5.64:1.

More and more young civil servants with only a few years of experience are also leaving public office, which is another problem.

Gangwon-do collected data on the resignations of civil servants with less than ten years of experience from eighteen cities (si) and counties (gun) as well as in the provincial office during the past four years, from 2019 to this year, and discovered that a total of 797 civil servants had resigned. The number is also increasing, from 128 in 2019 to 160 in 2020, 186 in 2021 and 219 in 2022. This year, 104 young civil servants have already resigned.

A, a local civil servant in Gangwon-do in his early thirties said, “The salary is small compared to general companies, and the age at which we can receive the government employees pension is being pushed back and even the amount is dropping. So it is true that young civil servants have lost a lot of will to work.” He added, “There are many rookies considering a resignation.”

The situation is the same in other cities and provinces. According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, this year the average competition for a grade-9 local civil servant was only 10.7:1. The government planned to hire the smallest number of civil servants since 2019, but the competition was similar to the average year. In particular, competition was weakest in Chungcheongnam-do--only 6.8:1.

The Chungcheongnam-do provincial office is also concerned about its young civil servants leaving. From 2019 until this year, 76 civil servants with less than ten years of experience resigned. Ten left in 2019, nineteen in 2020, fifteen in 2021, 26 in 2022 and so far this year, six have resigned.

Local governments are struggling to come up with a solution. Ham Myung-joon, the county mayor of Goseong-gun in Gangwon-do, inspected the facilities at the Unification Observation Tower along with 35 grade-8 civil servants on May 16 and listened to their difficulties. Goseong-gun has organized “times for communication” with 323 civil servants, grades seven and lower, since April in order to create a more horizontal and flexible organizational culture.

Chuncheon-si organized a tree-planting event at the square in front of City Hall on April 1 with 53 rookie civil servants taking part. They even hung signs with the names of the new civil servants on each tree to boost their pride. They then had time for the mayor and vice mayor to talk and listen to the young civil servants.

Chungcheongnam-do assigns rookie civil servants to major departments first to strengthen their professional capacity and provides various incentives, such as a “desired transfer policy,” which actively reflects the wishes of the people up for transfers. The provincial office regularly has discussions with the new civil servants to create a horizontal organizational culture.

However, in response to such measures, the younger civil servants said, “Instead of organizing events for show, it is important to find a fundamental solution, such as improving the wages and benefits and breaking away from a rigid workplace culture.”

A representative of the interior ministry explained, “The authority to manage personnel is with each local government, so it is difficult for the interior ministry to manage everything,” and said, “We will discuss the problem of improving the salary and benefits of local civil servants with related ministries, such as the Ministry of Personnel Management and the Ministry of Economy and Finance and provide support so that newly hired civil servants can adapt smoothly and settle into public office.”