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The photo is unrelated to the article. Workers are seen at a construction site. / Yonhap

As workplace fatalities remain heavily concentrated at businesses with fewer than 50 employees, calls are growing for the government to move away from managing individual workplaces one by one and toward a “collective safety management” system built around regions, industries and prime contractors. Experts say the delivery structure of industrial accident prevention policies itself needs to be overhauled by, for example, developing the joint safety manager system — in which multiple small and midsized businesses share safety professionals — into permanent infrastructure and replacing annual government support programs with mid- to long-term assistance.

On Sept. 9, the Foundation for Industrial Safety Partnerships, the Korea Federation of SMEs and the Korea Labor Institute held a policy forum at the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeouido, Seoul, to discuss ways to strengthen industrial accident prevention capabilities at small and midsized businesses and narrow the safety gap between large and smaller companies.

The concentration of industrial accidents at smaller workplaces has shown little sign of easing. In 2024, workplaces with fewer than 50 employees accounted for 98.2% of all businesses, while 670 workplace accident deaths, or 81.0% of the total, occurred at such workplaces. Traditional types of accidents, including falls, being struck by objects and getting caught in machinery, accounted for 63.8%. Smaller workplaces were also found to have relatively less access to safety information, dedicated personnel, worker participation bodies and the capacity to take follow-up measures after accidents.

“There are limits to the government’s ability to manage and support millions of small workplaces individually,” said Park Jong-sik, a research fellow at the Korea Labor Institute. “We need to shift toward a collective prevention system that uses intermediaries such as prime contractors, regional organizations, industry associations and cooperatives.”

The current application framework under the Occupational Safety and Health Act has also been cited as a factor undermining the safety management capacity of small workplaces. Some provisions on occupational safety and health management systems are applied differently depending on factors such as the number of regular employees, creating a gap between the actual level of risk at a workplace and the regulatory standards. Analysts say this can create blind spots, particularly when small businesses seek to establish dedicated safety personnel and organizations.

The collective management model would vary depending on the relationship between workplaces. For in-house subcontractors, prime contractors would assume greater responsibility for safety management, while off-site subcontractors and independent small and midsized businesses outside the prime contractor’s management network would be jointly managed at the regional or industry level. Support would be tailored according to workplace size, industry, level of risk and management capacity, with professional personnel, training and technical assistance concentrated on smaller businesses.

A key tool in collective safety management is the joint safety manager system. This year, 203 joint safety managers are supporting about 2,400 workplaces. However, the program has faced limitations in becoming a sustainable safety management infrastructure due to its annual project structure, cost-sharing requirements for participating associations and organizations, and weak links with other support programs.

“The role of joint safety managers should be expanded beyond simple inspections and consulting to include risk assessments, corrective measures, connections to support programs and follow-up management,” said Yang Ok-seok, head of workforce policy at the Korea Federation of SMEs. “We need to build a one-stop support system that connects fragmented programs for training, risk assessment and facility improvements through joint safety managers.”

The support period also needs to shift from a one-year basis to a mid- to long-term framework. Analysts say safety management capacity can accumulate within workplaces only when diagnosis, training, consulting, facility improvements, safety equipment support and follow-up management are linked together and continued over three to five years.

The effectiveness of close, long-term support has also been demonstrated in private-sector assistance programs. Among 186 small and midsized companies supported by the Foundation for Industrial Safety Partnerships in 2024, the industrial accident rate fell 16.7% from the previous year, while the number of serious accidents dropped from six to one. Average scores for occupational safety and health management systems rose from 35 to 66 points, and 62% of participating companies maintained their management systems one year after the support ended.

Local governments, meanwhile, would use regional administrative information and their accessibility to workplaces. Under the proposed structure, they would identify high-risk operations at an early stage using administrative information such as permits and facility improvement records, refer workplaces requiring technical assistance to the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency or private professional institutions, and forward cases requiring supervision to the central government. The model would combine the central government’s expertise and supervisory authority with local governments’ access to workplaces.

“If the central government establishes laws, institutions and support standards, local governments can use regional business information and support networks to identify workplaces that are difficult for the system to reach and act as intermediaries connecting them with appropriate assistance,” said Lee In-yong, director of the Labor Safety Division at the Gyeonggi provincial government.

                                                                                                          Kim Nam-hyung