An amendment of the Fair Hiring Procedure Act took effect from July 17th, 2019. The law applies to workplaces with 30 or more employees.
English translation of the act is available. However, the translation is based on the act before the amendment.
This post covers three important points of the amended law. For two of them, there is no English translation as yet.
Before we begin, knowing definitions of some terms used in the law helps to understand the major points.
Here are the definitions based on the article 2 of the act.
- The term “job offerer” means a person who intends to hire a job seeker
- The term “job seeker” means a person who responds to a recruitment advertisement put out by a job offerer in order to get a job
- The term “basic screening materials” means a job seeker’s application, resume and letter of self-introduction
- The term “supporting evidence” means a set of materials that prove matters stated in basic screening materials, such as degree certificates, career certificates and qualification certificates;
- The term “in-depth screening materials” means a set of objects and materials from which a job seeker’s ability can be assessed, such as a collection of works and research papers
Now what are the major points of the amended law?
First, a job-offerer should not ask a job-seeker to include personal information in basic screening materials or collect such information as supporting evidence unless such information is necessary for performing a job. (Article 4-3)
Such personal information defined by the law is:
- Physical condition of a job-seeker such as appearance, height, and weight
- Place of origin, marital status, property of a job-seeker
- Education, job and property of a job-seeker, his parents and children and his siblings
Second, a job-offerer should inform the job-seeker of hiring process such as hiring schedule, delay in hiring examination, changes in the hiring process through the workplace’s website or email. (Article 8)
Third, if a job-offerer divides hiring process into separate stages such as document screening, a written test, and an interview, he should make efforts to request supporting evidence (degree certificates) and in-depth screening materials (a collection of works) only from a job-seeker who has passed the document screening. (Article 13)
Unlike first and second points, the third point (Article 13) was already in the old law. I included it because it is worth mentioning as a standard practice adopted by most companies these days.
Violating the second point (article 4-3) by demanding personal information leads to a fine of not more than 5 million KRW according to the article 17 of the law. The current law has no penalites for violation of other two points.