Senior consultants step in to help with jeonse housing guidance

The Korea Employment Agency for the Elderly said Thursday it had created 69 senior consultant positions for older workers with expertise and experience in housing guarantee services.

The positions were created under a memorandum of understanding signed between the agency and the Korea Housing and Urban Guarantee Corporation (HUG), and are linked to the agency's on-site training support project.

That project subsidizes companies' labor costs to encourage them to hire or retain workers aged 60 and older.

The two organizations first signed an MOU last year, creating 75 senior consultant jobs at that time.

The consultants will handle inquiries on guarantee enrollment, guarantee fulfillment and bond recovery, as well as consultations on jeonse fraud victim support and jeonse housing — bolstering HUG's capacity to help low-income households maintain stable housing.

The 69 newly selected consultants have been assigned to 14 regional sales offices across the country, including Seoul (33), Gyeonggi Province (9), Incheon (7), Busan (5), Daejeon (5) and Gwangju (4).

Their contracts run for one year from their appointment date of Tuesday through July 13 next year, with a five-day workweek of eight hours a day, or 40 hours a week.

Through this hiring, the two organizations plan to support the "new senior" generation — active older adults — in taking on meaningful social roles in specialized fields such as housing guarantee consulting, while also raising the quality of service for vulnerable groups including jeonse fraud victims.

The agencies also said they would continue to identify and expand fields where older workers can contribute, and would strengthen job training and on-site management for the hired consultants to ensure stable working conditions.

Kim Su-young, president of the Korea Employment Agency for the Elderly, said the collaboration had produced "a fine example of the new senior generation's experience and expertise being channeled into the social value of supporting housing stability for ordinary people." He added, "We will continue to identify and expand senior jobs that the public can truly feel the benefit of, by drawing on the diverse work experience and capabilities of the new senior generation."