Analysis of the office of Democratic Party member Han Byeong-do of the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee
27,000 cases in 2019 → 76,000 cases last year… Job stress
A significant increase from 25,643 cases in 22 years to 53,400 cases in one year
By rank, grades 6 and 7 are the most common… By age, 30s and 40s
It was revealed that the use of the ‘Civil Servant Mental Health Center’, which supports psychological counseling for civil servants and their families, has increased nearly fourfold in four years.
According to data submitted to Rep. Han Byeong-do of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee, by the Ministry of Personnel Management on the 24th, the number of cases of civil servants using mental health centers increased by about 3.8 times, from 20,079 cases in 2019 to 75,938 cases last year.
In 2019, the Personnel Management Office expanded and reorganized the ‘Government Building Civil Servant Counseling Center’ into the ‘Civil Servant Mental Health Center’ to specialize in treating the psychological distress of civil servants, prevent disasters, and boost morale.
Since then, the number of cases of civil servant mental health center use has fluctuated between 20,000 and 30,000, with 23,423 cases in 2020, 32,279 cases in 2021, and 25,643 cases in 2022, but last year, it increased significantly by 53,400 cases.
It appears that increasingly excessive malicious complaints, such as verbal abuse, swearing, threats, and sexual harassment, as well as a rigid organizational culture and job-related stress, have had a complex impact.
There are currently nine civil servant mental health centers operating across the country, including in Seoul, Gwacheon, Daejeon, and Sejong.
Among these, the Daejeon Center had the largest increase in usage last year compared to 2019. It surged from 3,054 cases to 11,237 cases. Chuncheon Center, which opened last year, recorded 16,211 cases in the same year, beating out Sejong (11,589 cases) and Daejeon (11,237 cases) to take first place.
The Civil Servant Mental Health Center is receiving applications prior to counseling, and since 2020, when the reasons for counseling were classified into workplace, personal, and family, the most common reasons were personal (23,190 cases), workplace (25,009 cases), and family (9,584 cases).
Among these, when specifically categorizing problems at work, job stress accounted for 13,217 cases (64.4%) and conflicts within the organization accounted for 4,477 cases (21.8%), or about 86% of the total.
Looking at the use of civil servant mental health centers by rank over the past five years, the 6th and 7th grades had 7,612 cases, which was more than the 4th and 5th grades (3,433 cases) and the 8th and 9th grades (3,340 cases) combined. When broken down by age, the results are similar, with those in their 30s and 40s having 7,390 and 7,350 cases, respectively.
Rep. Han Byung-do said, “Mental health centers should be more active so that psychological difficulties caused by malicious complaints or job-related stress can be resolved in advance,” and “The personnel management office and each ministry should take steps to fundamentally improve the constitution of frontline public officials.”
(Seoul = Newsis)
Source: www.donga.com
