Starting in March next year, the government will add 5,394 dedicated staff to be assigned to local governments to fully roll out "integrated care" nationwide. It is the largest increase in about a decade since 2011–2014, when surging welfare demand led to the hiring of roughly 7,000 additional local welfare officials.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) and the Ministry of Health and Welfare said on the 11th, through the "preliminary calculation of 2026 local government standard labor costs," that they plan to "include a total of 5,394 dedicated personnel to drive the local governments' integrated care program." The standard labor cost is the "baseline for aggregates of labor costs" set by the MOIS for local governments. Local governments that exceed this baseline face fiscal penalties.
Specifically, ▲ 90 at metropolitan and provincial headquarters ▲ 1,126 at city, county and district headquarters ▲ 4,178 at towns, townships, neighborhoods and public health centers. For towns, townships and neighborhoods, which identify eligible recipients on the front lines and handle applications, intake and monitoring, at least one dedicated staff member can be assigned.
Integrated care is a system in which the state provides integrated, "customized" care support services—such as welfare, health care and long-term care—so that older adults, people with disabilities and others who have difficulty with daily life can live healthily where they reside. Pilot programs have been conducted by some local governments, and starting Mar. 27 next year, it must be implemented nationwide. However, there have been persistent concerns that staffing is far from sufficient to carry this out.
In addition to increasing the local government staffing quota, the government also decided to temporarily fund a portion of labor costs with central government money. Over the next two years, it will finance for six months each year the labor costs for 2,400 people, equivalent to 44% of the total added staff, using central government funds. It set aside 91.4 billion won in next year's budget for this.