Members of the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) are holding a press conference on December 19th at the CCEJ auditorium in Jongno-gu, Seoul, announcing the employment status of former National Assembly officials after retirement. Senior reporter Seo Sung-il.
The Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) announced the results of a survey indicating that half of the former officials from the National Assembly have reentered private companies after retirement over the past six years. Among them, the largest number have moved to Coupang, which has recently faced controversies involving the hiring of former officials. CCEJ stated, “The reality of heading towards conglomerates, audited institutions, and law firms is severe,” and criticized the approval system for post-retirement employment as ineffective.
On December 19th, at their auditorium in Jongno-gu, Seoul, CCEJ held a press conference to announce the employment status of former officials affiliated with the National Assembly. CCEJ conducted a comprehensive analysis of 438 employment screenings for National Assembly members, their aides, and Secretariat staff over the last six years, using information from the National Assembly Secretariat from 2020 to the present. The employment screening system is a measure introduced to prevent conflicts of interest, collusion between politics and business, and preferential treatment by requiring retired public officials to get screened and approved by their former agencies before joining related companies.
According to their announcement, out of the 438 public officials who were subject to retirement screening, 405 underwent ’employment restriction screening’ to check if restrictions applied to their employment. Over half of those screened, 239 officials (54.57%), moved to private companies.
The company receiving the most former officials was Coupang, with 16 hires. Following Coupang were LG affiliates (11), SK affiliates (10), Samsung affiliates (9), and KT affiliates (8).
CCEJ noted that the largest category was conglomerate affiliates with 126 cases (28.77%), followed by medium-sized and small enterprises with 113 cases (25.80%), the public sector with 78 cases (17.81%), law firms and other professional service entities with 61 cases (13.93%), associations and interest groups with 48 cases (10.96%), and private research institutions (education, healthcare, etc.) with 12 cases (2.74%).
CCEJ pointed out a clear “strategic concentration” phenomenon, where companies with significant National Assembly-related regulation or legislative issues actively hire former National Assembly personnel. They noted the potential for conflict of interest when committee members who influence corporate activities directly join the companies they were regulating.
CCEJ also criticized the fact that only 11 cases out of all screenings resulted in employment restrictions, suggesting that the National Assembly’s Public Officials’ Ethics Committee is functioning merely as an “employment approval issuer.” They highlighted that even when restrictions are applied, the structure allows for passage through exceptional approval procedures, and insisted that restoring the system’s credibility requires redesigning the screening criteria, focusing on legislative activities and committee jurisdiction.
CCEJ called upon the National Assembly to enhance the relevance of duties in screenings by reflecting legislative, budget, and audit activities, expand the screening criteria for aides from the department to the institution level, and require the disclosure of employment approval reasons and specific screening results.
Kim Tae-wook, reporter (wook@kyunghyang.com)