'AI handles admin, people handle people': Government to remake employment centers as lifelong career partners

The government plans to overhaul its public employment centers — long focused on administrative tasks such as processing unemployment benefits — into AI-driven organizations offering personalized career services. Under the new model, AI will handle repetitive administrative work while employment center staff concentrate on people-centered services such as counseling, job matching and career development support.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor said Wednesday it co-hosted an employment service innovation forum with the Korea Labor Institute at the Korea Press Center in Seoul to discuss the direction of a national employment service overhaul. The forum was organized to share reform proposals and gather expert input to strengthen on-the-ground policy implementation.

The government plans to restructure the employment service system in response to labor market shifts driven by the spread of AI and changes in industrial structure, which have weakened the concept of lifetime employment and made frequent job changes the norm. The aim is to move beyond administrative functions such as paying unemployment benefits and build a service-centered system focused on helping people develop job skills and manage their careers — what the government describes as "total care from graduation to retirement."

The national employment service reform plan unveiled Wednesday centers on four key tasks: automating administrative work with AI and strengthening personalized counseling, separating administrative and service functions, building an AI-based digital employment center, and raising staff expertise and organizational vitality. The core of the plan is to use AI to automate repetitive tasks such as unemployment benefit processing and redeploy the freed-up staff to counseling for vulnerable job seekers and support for businesses.

The government also plans to build a "personal AI employment center" that integrates AI throughout the entire employment center process, analyzing each job seeker's career history and competencies to recommend tailored services. The system would suggest suitable jobs and vocational training based on individual profiles and provide in-depth counseling for those who need additional support.

"The core of this reform is to hand repetitive administrative tasks to AI and fill that space with services that connect people to jobs," Vice Minister Kwon Chang-jun said. "We will faithfully reflect the views of experts and push forward employment service reforms that people can feel on the ground," he said.