Ministry of Employment and Labor Announces ‘AI+ Capacity Up Project’

The government will support artificial intelligence (AI) vocational skill development for over 1 million labor market participants by 2030. The goal is to strengthen AI utilization capabilities for all citizens in labor market entry, activity, and transition phases.

The Ministry of Employment and Labor announced the “Labor Market AI Talent Development Implementation Plan: AI+ Capacity Up Project” at the 2nd Science and Technology Ministers’ Meeting held at the Government Complex Seoul on Dec. 18.

Next year’s budget for the ministry’s job training-related programs is approximately 2.7 trillion won. The ministry plans to invest about 250 billion won, roughly 10% of this amount, to enable 230,000 people to receive AI-related training, providing training to over 1 million people over the next five years.

For young jobseekers entering the labor market, the ministry will present an “AI Capacity Enhancement Model” including basic understanding of AI, job application, and solution development, and actively support training. Additionally, to ensure AI-related content can be organized throughout job training courses, the ministry will expand AI basic understanding and application courses in general Naeil Baeum card training and significantly increase AI remote training courses.

K-Digital Training (KDT), a representative youth job training program, will be upgraded to a course that cultivates AI engineers by field.

Through the KDT AI Campus Program, the ministry will train 10,000 working engineers and increase participation allowances for young people.

For startups that hire AI training graduates, the ministry will newly pursue business commercialization funding support programs through collaboration with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

For workers already in the labor market, the ministry plans to support the process of AI training-interested SME discovery → training needs diagnosis → customized training as one package. In this process, the ministry will systematically discover companies through collaboration with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, and support these companies with training situation diagnosis and AI training roadmap design.

To this end, the ministry plans to newly designate regional AI specialized institutions as SME AI Training Expansion Centers and cultivate private vocational training specialists who possess both domain knowledge and AI knowledge. Based on training situation diagnosis results, the ministry will link customized AI training for companies, including AI online free education.

Meanwhile, AI education and training to support new challenges for middle-aged and older workers will also be strengthened.

Through employment centers, middle-aged tomorrow centers, and other middle-aged employment networks, as well as Regional Human Resource Development Committees established in 17 metropolitan and provincial governments, the ministry will identify AI education and training needs for middle-aged and older workers, and prepare various programs including providing AI basic application education in middle-aged specialized courses at POLYTECH universities.

Finally, the ministry will build a systematic AI training foundation to create a sustainable AI education and training ecosystem.

The ministry will install 4 Physical AI Practice Labs matched with regional industries and open them to local SMEs and universities, and newly designate 20 AI-specialized Joint Training Centers that share excellent AI training infrastructure and programs owned by large corporations with SMEs. Additionally, the ministry will systematically cultivate personnel to teach AI through the AI Teacher and Instructor Academy Program.

The ministry also plans to strengthen collaboration with related ministries including the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources. Through this, the ministry will fill gaps between AI projects and continuously discover projects that can create synergy when collaborating, such as employment and start-up linkage projects for training participants and excellent AI content sharing projects between educational training platforms of each ministry.

The ministry plans to announce the AI Response Employment Policy Roadmap containing job impact analysis and response measures according to AI transformation in the first half of next year.

Minister of Employment and Labor Kim Young-hoon said, “We will actively support AI capacity enhancement for those seeking work opportunities and everyone who is working,” adding, “Going forward, the Ministry of Employment and Labor will do its best to ensure everyone can work happily through AI transformation where ‘labor’ participates together and ‘people’ are at the center.”

출처 : Businesskorea(https://www.businesskorea.co.kr)