[KS] Lifetime employment

[Sohn Hyun-U]

Dear all,

I would like to ask for your suggestions and ideas about the institution of
lifetime employment in Korea.

1) Austrian-American "management guru" Peter Ferdinand Drucker repeatedly
claimed to have introduced the idea to Japan during the 50s and 60s' labor
shortage. Would anyone be able to confirm this or to lead me to others'
claims?

2) The whole notion of "lifetime employment" in Korea strikes me as a bit
odd. If Drucker's claim was at least partly true and Japanese companies
took to it only during the takeoff after WW2, when could Korean companies
have emulated them? During the "Big Push" into heavy industry? And even if
a 17-23 year old had entered the work force before that, he would still be
working today (and could still be laid off), wouldn't he? So, in light of
current ongoings in the country, could it be claimed that "lifetime
employment" had always been more of a promise, not a practice (and
certainly not an established one) in Korea?

3) Though the exact figure seems to be much disputed, nobody would tally
the number of lifetime employees in Japan higher than 30 percent of the
workforce, and most (as I was told) would estimate it to be far lower even
than that. Are there comparable studies or estimates for Korean workers
having such an arrangement with their employer?

4) As far as I know (not very far which is why I'm writing this), Japanese
employers and employees do not have a contract stipulating their exact
relationship (an Arbeitsvertrag, or working contract, as it would be called
in German) and whether they belong to the select group of "valuable"
lifetime employees. Would anyone be able to confirm this legal, or a-legal,
practice in Japan and tell whether similar arrangements are common in
Korea? Among others, Fukuyama classified Korea as a country with a
relatively low level of "social capital" compared to high-trust societies
such as Japan. How strong (or tenuous) could a possible Korean lifetime
employment arrangement actually be then and does it explain some of the
current turmoil at Hyundai etc?

Sohn Hyun-U
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Mit freundlichen Gruessen,
Sohn Hyun-U


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