YUHS achieves full compliance with disability employment quota

Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) said it has achieved 100 percent compliance with Korea’s mandatory disability employment quota, maintaining the level above the requirement since first surpassing it in August.

Yonsei University Health System (YUHS) in Seoul

The institution employs about 12,000 people across Severance Hospital, Gangnam Severance Hospital and Yongin Severance Hospital, and more than 400 of them are employees with disabilities. This represents 3.3 percent of its workforce, exceeding the national mandatory quota of 3.1 percent.

According to 2024 data released by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, companies with more than one thousand employees recorded an average disability employment rate of 2.97 percent, falling short of the legally required threshold.

YUHS said it has sought to move beyond basic compliance by focusing on practical and sustainable disability employment expansion.

The institution formed a joint disability employment task force with the Korea Employment Agency for Persons with Disabilities in October 2022 to strengthen recruitment and job development.

Through job-development agreements, department-level job demand assessments and dedicated workshops, the task force designed jobs tailored to the capabilities and needs of employees with disabilities.

Newly established roles extend beyond traditional nursing or administrative support positions and include patient transport assistants using smart location-based systems, blood pressure measurement assistants using IoT technology, remote-working visual artists, postal service assistants and big-data analysis center assistants.

These efforts helped raise the disability employment rate from the low 1 percent range in 2022 to more than 2 percent in 2024, ultimately leading to full quota compliance this year.

YUHS also provides job-specific training programs and post-employment adaptation support to help employees with disabilities build long-term careers. The institution additionally offers disability awareness training for all staff to foster an inclusive working environment.

“The organization’s disability employment model is creating meaningful change across the institution,” YUHS President and CEO Keum Ki-chang said. “The approach enhances not only social responsibility but also workplace harmony and operational efficiency.”

YUHS will continue developing a disability-inclusive culture and strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) as key institutional values, Keum added.