Seoul's top city hall officials submit mass resignations ahead of new mayoral term

Senior Grade 1 officials at the Seoul Metropolitan Government — including the heads of the economic, welfare, transportation, housing and disaster safety bureaus, as well as the chief of the Arisu water authority — have submitted their resignations en masse, it has been confirmed.

The city received the resignation letters from the officials through the head of the administrative bureau Friday afternoon.

The move is widely interpreted as part of Mayor Oh Se-hoon's push to revamp the organization and signal a fresh start ahead of his ninth elected term. Oh won the June 3 local election to become the first Seoul mayor in history elected to a fifth term.

It is common practice in local governments for senior officials to submit collective resignations ahead of a mayor's reelection or a planned organizational restructuring.

With Mayor Oh set to lead the city for another four years, the officials are seen as stepping aside to ease the burden of building a new administrative framework and reorganizing city hall's structure.

Some of the officials who submitted their resignations Friday may move on to head agencies under the Seoul Metropolitan Government, serve as executives at public institutions, or take up research professorships at the University of Seoul.

The city is expected to carry out a large-scale round of promotions and transfers in the coming days. A number of Grade 2 bureau-level officials are already being mentioned as candidates for promotion to Grade 1, and competition for positions within city hall is expected to intensify.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government is expected to complete its organizational restructuring and follow-up personnel moves by the end of this month, ahead of the full launch of the ninth elected term on July 1.

"The Grade 1 officials submitted their resignations en masse to refresh the organizational atmosphere ahead of the launch of the ninth elected term," one senior Grade 1 official at the city said.

Observers inside and outside city hall say the move goes beyond a routine personnel procedure, describing it as the starting point of a sweeping personnel overhaul aimed at establishing a new direction for city administration and rebuilding the framework for driving key policies.