South Korea's court system has paid more than 13.6 billion won ($9.6 million) in levies over the past six years for failing to meet its legal quota for hiring workers with disabilities.
Of the 17,863 authorized positions for general civil service staff at the courts as of August, 476 were filled by workers with disabilities, for a rate of 2.7%, according to data the Supreme Court submitted to the office of Rep. Kim Yong-min of the Democratic Party of Korea on the 3rd.
Under the Act on the Employment Promotion and Vocational Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities, the central government, local governments, public agencies and employers with 50 or more full-time workers must hire a set share of workers with disabilities. The mandated rate is 3.8%.
To meet that standard, the courts would have needed to employ 678 workers with disabilities as of August, well above the actual figure.
The courts have held the rate at 2.7% every year since 2021 and have paid the employment levy annually. The payments totaled 1.37 billion won in 2021, 1.45 billion won in 2022, 2.05 billion won in 2023, 2.46 billion won in 2024 and 3.1 billion won in 2025, and reached 3.17 billion won as of August 2026.
"The judiciary is failing to meet even the mandatory employment rate for people with disabilities each year," Kim said. "Rather than paying fines, it needs to come up with substantive measures to expand hiring of people with disabilities and create a stable working environment."
