S.Korea to invest $24 mn in fostering future car industry workforce

South Korea will invest 31.5 billion won ($23.96 million) this year to train over 3,700 core personnel in future car technologies, including autonomous driving.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on Tuesday that it will hold a "Future Car Workforce Development Program" briefing in cities such as Seoul, Gwangju, Daegu, Cheonan and Changwon, providing detailed guidance on the new and revised programs to be introduced to companies and universities located in regions where auto parts suppliers are located.

The Future Car Workforce Development Program focuses on three areas: developing interdisciplinary talent, providing on-site tailored workforce training, and building workforce infrastructure. Twenty universities are implementing education programs on Future Car-Software Convergence to train undergraduate students and professional workers for the future car industry.

In addition, this year, master's and doctoral programs will be offered on automotive security, including AI security, software security, network security and cloud security, which are specialized in field technology and will lead the future car security industry.

The four research institutions will run customized industry-academia projects for each university's specialized field degree program and on-site technology research and development (R&D) programs.

Furthermore, as the transformation of future cars accelerates from internal combustion engines to electric cars and software-defined vehicles, the number of employees receiving education this year will be expanded from last year's 1,340 to 2,485.

To expand education on environmentally-friendly car technologies, one more educational institution will be added to the existing six specialized universities. The ministry will continue to develop workforce training programs tailored to the field for newly hired employees in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and enterprises of middle standing.

A ministry official stated that his ministry will concentrate its resources to foster innovative talent that combines car and software technology and train a total of 10,000 such professionals by 2030.

Write to Han-Shin Park at phs@hankyung.com