The Ministry of Personnel Management introduced a range of civil service reforms, including tighter reviews of financial holdings as well as expanded hiring and career development practices. 

President Lee Jae Myung speaks at the second round of work reports at the Yeongbingwan guest house at the Blue House on Aug. 5.
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Senior officials who hold more than a set amount in leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETF) tracking a single stock will have those holdings screened for conflicts of interest, the Ministry of Personnel Management said Wednesday.

The plan lands in the middle of a fight over whether such funds, most of them tied to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, are destabilizing the Korean stock market.

Minister Tschoe Dong-seok set out the measure at the Blue House as part of the ministry’s work plan for the second half of the year, one of a round of reports delivered to President Lee Jae Myung.

Officials holding single-stock leveraged ETFs will fall under the remit of the stock blind trust review committee. That covers every senior civil servant at grade 3 or above who is already subject to asset disclosure, along with officials at grade 4 or above in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Financial Services Commission and departments that handle financial affairs.

Those officials must already disclose securities holdings worth more than 30 million won ($21,000). They then have three options: Place the shares in a blind trust, sell them or ask the committee to rule on whether the holding relates to their duties. A finding of no conflict lets them keep the shares. Anything else forces a sale.

The ministry will extend that same machinery to leveraged ETFs. Officials subject to asset disclosure will also have to list the name and quantity of any single-stock ETF they hold, and the ministry will tighten its review of virtual assets and unlisted shares.

Tschoe Dong-seok, minister of personnel management, speaks at the second round of work reports at the Yeongbingwan guest house at the Blue House on Aug. 5.
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Hiring rules are changing too. A new system will award an extra 3 percent advantage to candidates who have lived in a region for 15 years or more when the government recruits for posts in that region, and the share of grade 9 civil service positions set aside by region will widen in stages.

“National civil servants posted outside Seoul, in tax or postal roles for instance, could fall under the regional points system,” a ministry official said.

For local government posts, which the Ministry of the Interior and Safety oversees, the additional points will apply to open recruitment at grade 7 and below.

The ministry also wants to make it easier for younger candidates to enter the civil service through the experienced-hire track. Time spent running a business and work done in a relevant field before obtaining a qualification will both count toward the career experience requirement, and people expected to receive their degree in the current semester may now apply.

Regarding discipline, the ministry will toughen penalties for passive administration and for hate speech, and will create a legal basis for drug testing officials who handle controlled substances.

President Lee Jae Myung speaks at the second round of work reports at the Yeongbingwan guest house at the Blue House on Aug. 5.
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Officials hurt or killed in the line of duty will get more recognition, and the ministry is pushing to designate a day for civil servants injured at work.

Recruitment from the private sector will expand. The ministry aims to bring in more than 1,200 specialist officials by 2028 in fields including AI, patent examination and industrial safety inspection and investigation, and to create more than 500 open positions by 2030, with support for ministries to pay salaries comparable to private firms.

Inside the service, strong grade 6 officials will be able to move up to grade 5 early under a fast-track promotion scheme, and new grade 6 posts will be opened to competition to give able grade 7 officials a quicker route up. Starting pay at grade 9 will rise to about 3 million won a month by 2027.

The ministry will also establish grounds to demote senior officials to a lower grade when they fail a suitability review.

“We will push our personnel reform tasks at pace and build a capable, energetic public service,” Tschoe said.

BY MOON HEE-CHUL [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.