Workplace deaths fall, labor dialogue restored — but youth jobs and 'Yellow Envelope Law' remain unresolved

As the Lee Jae Myung administration marks its first year in office, strengthened industrial safety, expanded labor rights and the restoration of social dialogue stand out as the key achievements in labor policy. At the same time, sluggish youth employment, the dual structure of the labor market and ongoing labor-management conflict over the so-called Yellow Envelope Law — amendments to Articles 2 and 3 of the Trade Union Act — remain unresolved challenges.

The most visible achievement is a drop in industrial accidents. President Lee declared a "war on workplace disasters" immediately after taking office and made reducing industrial accidents a core state priority. The Ministry of Employment and Labor sharply increased the number of labor inspectors, tightened oversight of workplaces with repeated serious accidents and conducted intensive safety inspections focused on construction and manufacturing sites. As a result, 113 workers died in accidents subject to disaster investigations in the first quarter of this year, down 24 from the same period a year earlier — the lowest first-quarter figure since the ministry began compiling the relevant statistics in 2022.

However, a series of major industrial accidents — including an explosion at Hanwha Aerospace's Daejeon factory that killed five workers — has led analysts to say whether the annual figures will improve remains to be seen.

The government also stepped up its response to wage theft. It introduced credit sanctions against repeat offenders, established a new unit dedicated to preventing wage arrears, and expanded living-expense support for affected workers as well as assistance in recovering unpaid wages. The measures reflect a commitment to structurally addressing wage theft, which had hit record highs for several consecutive years. In labor relations, the restoration of social dialogue is widely cited as a major accomplishment. The Lee administration replaced the confrontational posture that defined the previous government's approach to labor with a policy of resolving disputes through dialogue and mediation.

The Yellow Envelope Law, by contrast, remained the most contentious labor policy issue of the past year. Labor groups call it an institutional step forward that meaningfully guarantees bargaining rights for subcontracted workers, while business groups warn that expanding the definition of employer will increase the burden of collective bargaining and heighten uncertainty in labor-management relations.

Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon pushed back on that framing, saying he found it "hard to agree with the claim that the Yellow Envelope Law has widened the arena of conflict." He described the process as one in which contractor-subcontractor relationships that had previously been shut out of collective bargaining were brought within the institutional framework. Business groups, however, have not backed down, and the dispute is expected to continue for now.

Youth employment is the most pressing challenge facing the government. The number of employed people aged 15 to 29 fell by 194,000 in April compared with the same month a year earlier, extending a streak of year-on-year declines to 42 consecutive months. Workers in their 20s accounted for the steepest drop among all age groups, with 195,000 fewer employed than a year ago.

The dual structure of the labor market also persists. The wage gap between large corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises, and between prime contractors and subcontractors, has shown little sign of narrowing. Legislative discussions on extending the mandatory retirement age and overhauling wage systems have stalled amid disagreement between labor and management, and structural reform of the national pension system has in effect come to a halt following the recent parametric reform.