Navy privates salute during a training completion ceremony at the Republic of Korea's Naval Education and Training Command in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, Friday. Yonhap
Granting higher starting grades and faster promotion tracks to employees with military service experience amounts to gender discrimination, the Seoul Administrative Court has ruled.
The decision issued on Sunday renews a long-standing debate over how much society should reward military service, which all able-bodied Korean men are required to undergo for at least 18 months.
In 2024, an unnamed plaintiff filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, alleging that an incorporated association’s hiring policy gave college graduates with military service record a higher starting grade and salary step, placing those without such experience at a disadvantage in both pay and promotion opportunities.
The commission rejected the complaint in February last year, concluding that the company’s policy did not amount to unjustifiable discrimination against women. The employee eventually took the case to court.
Judges found that giving employees with military service experience two extra salary steps was permissible under the Support for Veterans Act as compensation for economic losses suffered during conscription, and therefore did not in itself constitute discrimination. However, it ruled that reflecting military service in initial grade placement and promotion opportunities — by hiring veterans at Grade 5 and non‑veterans at Grade 6, thereby delaying women’s promotions by two years — was unlawful gender discrimination
“The Support for Veterans Act only stipulates that military service may be included in work experience — it does not provide that it may be reflected in promotions,” the court said. “On the contrary, the Equal Employment Opportunity and Work-Family Balance Assistance Act explicitly prohibits employers from discriminating between men and women in promotions.”
The ruling drew mixed reactions from the public. Jung Ha-na, a woman in her 40s and mother of a 12-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter, told The Korea Times that the ruling was reasonable.
“Women's careers are derailed by pregnancy and childbirth, and nobody accounts for that,” Jung said, adding that her own decade-long career gap made re-entry extremely difficult. “Even if men are restricted to base for about two years, they get paid, and can still study in their free time.”
Jeon Jun-seo, 25, who had completed his service in the Army, pushed back on the ruling, saying veterans deserved greater recognition. “Since you've contributed to society, there should be some compensation for that,” Jeon said.
Source: Korea Times News
