Australia-Korea Cross-Cultural Conference 2022

The Centre for Social Impact Flinders at Flinders University, partnering with the Korea Employment Agency for Persons with Disabilities (KEAD) hosted the Australia-Korea Cross-Cultural Conference 2022: Innovation in Disability Employment funded by a range of partners, including the Australia-Korea Foundation with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The conference aimed to exchange knowledge and experiences of disability employment in Australia and South Korea to explore innovation in disability employment. The conference will be on the following topics:

• Disability employment policies under different jurisdictions

• Accessible and inclusive working environments for workers with disability

• Innovative and creative models for disability employment initiatives

  
  

Backgrounds about disability employment in Australia and South Korea

The Australian disability policy, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), introduced a three-year plan for Employment Strategy for People with Disability 2019-2022 to improve the socio-economic participation of people with disability in Australia. The Strategy aims to diversify the mainstream workforce by extending employment opportunities, including supported employment, social enterprise, micro-enterprise, and family businesses. The disability employment rate in Australia has not increased in the past decades because disability employment is optional for Australia's business owners. It is essential to develop innovative and inclusive strategies of customised support and accommodations tailored to various individual strengths and needs of people with disability in Australia. At the same time, it is more important to raise disability awareness and increase interest in working with people with disability within the mainstream business industries because business owners are the ones who will decide to take action or not for disability employment in Australia.

The Korean disability policy is based on the mandatory quota system with applying levy, which focuses on how all businesses have a social responsibility to create disability employment opportunities for people with disability. The disability employment rate had significantly increased from 0.43% in 1991 to 2.29% in 2019. The Korean Employment Agency for Persons with Disabilities (KEAD, 2020) reported that SAMSUNG, LG and other large corporations have established over 100 subsidiary-type standard workplaces to employ people with disability. The mandatory system has encouraged public and private companies to design diverse employment opportunities for people with disability. The KEAD provide various training for skills and professional development using customised strategies tailored to individual strengths and disability conditions of people with disability.

This project aimed to introduce diverse business cases working with people with disability between Australia and South Korea. It will offer opportunities to develop people-to-people relationships between Australian and Korean organisations relating to disability employment and potential employers of businesses at the individual, organisational, and societal levels.