Kim Yong-beom, head of the presidential office's policy planning, said Tuesday that about 8,200 young people are set to participate in the "K-New Deal Academy," a program launched through the government's supplementary budget, and signaled that he would significantly expand its scale next year.
In a Facebook post that day, Kim said of the K-New Deal Academy, "It was a project started to address the growing problem of young people who are 'taking a break' at the time of the supplementary budget, but as more companies than expected participated, we were able to confirm new possibilities for solving the youth employment problem." The K-New Deal Academy is a program in which companies directly design and operate youth vocational skills development training programs in their specialized fields, with the government covering the costs.
As a result of this round of company recruitment, 107 companies applied with 149 academies, and after a review, 72 academies from 53 companies were ultimately selected.
Kim assessed that "artificial intelligence (AI) is creating new opportunities, but for young people taking their first steps into society, it can also become a higher barrier to entry." He noted that while companies want talent that can be deployed to the field immediately, young people repeatedly find it difficult to gain opportunities to build careers.
He went on to describe the K-New Deal Academy as "a starting line that provides young people with their first experience, and a platform for companies to directly discover and nurture future talent," emphasizing that it is "an experiment to create a new employment ecosystem where young people and companies grow together."
Major companies including SK, KT, LG, Lotte, and Hanwha Ocean are participating directly in this project. Kim also assessed that it is significant that a considerable number of the selected academies will operate outside the metropolitan area.
"If talent grows within their regions rather than leaving them, and companies can also nurture the talent they need within those regions, this will become a precious seed for balanced national development," Kim said.
He added, "Because this year it was pursued as a supplementary budget project, the period for system design and implementation was short, so there is regret that we could not sufficiently expand its scale." He said, "Next year, we will broaden the scope of participation to include not only large corporations but also public institutions and foreign companies, building an ecosystem in which far more companies and more young people take part together."
