S. Korea fielded athletes in only 50 of 64 skill categories, Lee says nation must rebuild vocational talent

While China entered competitors in all 64 trade categories at the WorldSkills Competition, South Korea sent athletes to only 50. Lee Byung-hoon, chairman of the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, sees the 14 uncontested categories as a sign of a deeper challenge: the country is not developing enough skilled young talent. Reversing the trend, he said, will require investment from both government and business, alongside broader social recognition of the value of skilled trades — even in an era of AI.

Speaking in Shanghai on Wednesday, Lee said skilled trades are being increasingly sidelined despite their growing importance. "I believe skilled trades matter more than ever in this day and age, yet over time they seem to have been pushed further and further to the back, treated like leftovers," he said. The difficulty in identifying, selecting and nurturing skilled talent, he added, is what ultimately limits South Korea's participation in international competitions.

At the 48th WorldSkills Competition in Shanghai, China entered all 64 trade categories. South Korea sent 56 competitors across 50 categories. Japan fielded an even larger delegation — 64 competitors across 57 categories, more than South Korea in both counts.

Lee said South Korea's absence from 14 categories reflects a reality in which the country has not done enough to identify and develop young talent in those fields. He said the concentration of entries in a handful of strong categories deserves broader public attention, and that joint investment in talent development by government and business is directly tied to the country's future competitiveness.

As a way to renew interest and investment in skilled trades, Lee proposed that South Korea bid to host the WorldSkills Competition again. With 25 years having passed since the country last hosted the event in 2001, he said preparing for and staging the competition would create a natural opportunity to expand related investment and support. "We need to build an atmosphere where the government supports skilled trades as it once did, and where the public recognizes their importance," he said.

In discussing the role of the private sector, Lee brought up Samsung. He noted that his view of the company had shifted since taking the helm of the agency, compared with his earlier years as a labor relations scholar. "When I was dealing with labor-management issues, I honestly could not look at Samsung favorably — but since taking on this role, I have come to see the company differently," he said.

He was referring to Samsung's contributions to nurturing skilled talent — sponsoring the WorldSkills Competition, hiring competition athletes and running its own in-house skills contests. Lee said he also discussed ways to promote skilled trades through public-private cooperation with Samsung representatives during his visit to Shanghai, with the aim of linking the agency's work with corporate efforts to maximize the impact of collaboration.

Another reason Lee is focused on skilled trades is the disruption AI is bringing to industries and jobs. Even as AI's reach extends into knowledge and creative fields — accounting, journalism, academia and writing — he believes that skills embedded in the body through years of practice will take comparatively longer to be replaced.

He described this as "the mystery of the human body," saying that "the time it takes for AI to replace physical skills is relatively slower — and in a way, that is another opportunity." Tacit knowledge built through long experience and repetition, he said, can serve as both an industrial competitive advantage and a source of new job opportunities for young people.

However, Lee said that when skilled workers' expertise is used to train AI systems, there must be a shared discussion about how the resulting gains are distributed. His concern is that turning a master craftsperson's know-how into data should not simply be used to replace that person. Citing the intellectual property value of skilled knowledge, he said, "When AI generates profit using that knowledge, there must be an agreement in place to share it."

He also argued that as AI raises productivity, society needs to reach a consensus on reducing working hours and distributing the gains. Without a structure for sharing the benefits of technological advancement, he warned, workers could face serious hardship during the transition.

Supporting youth employment is another priority for the agency. Lee said the agency's overall budget has been reduced, but that it plans to gradually expand programs targeting young people within its vocational skills development support, which has until now focused primarily on workers at small and medium-sized enterprises.

Next year, the agency is preparing a pilot program called the "Youth AI First Career Support Project." According to an agency official, the program will support 750 young people in building careers in the AI field over a base period of one year, extendable to two, to help them grow within the sector. Lee said the agency has a role to play in giving young people who have hit a wall in the job market their first chance to build a career.

For Lee, who has spent his career studying labor relations and social dialogue, leading the agency has also been a process of learning anew about the value of skilled trades and qualifications. He said he once thought of certifications as little more than a credential for signaling ability in the job market, but that on the ground he has met people who struggled to earn their qualifications and transformed their lives in the process. He called those journeys "human triumphs," and said he is considering compiling their stories into a book.