[Op-Ed] We Must Not Become a Country Safe Only on Paper

The occupational safety and health disclosure system took effect this past August. It is a system that requires companies with 500 or more regular employees and construction firms with annual project volumes of at least 120 billion won, among others, to disclose to the public their safety and health management status, industrial accident statistics, and the scale of their safety investments. Its stated purpose is to increase transparency at industrial worksites and prevent accidents.

The problem is that the system may push companies toward perfection on paper rather than the actual elimination of risk. If disclosure figures become the standard by which companies are evaluated, rather than their actual safety management capabilities, efforts to improve worksites will be pushed aside, leaving only the task of producing attractive indicators.

This concern is not unfounded. As of 2023, Korea’s fatal occupational accident rate per 10,000 workers stood at 0.39, exceeding the OECD average of 0.29. The reality that fatal accidents have not meaningfully declined despite successive strengthening of industrial safety regulations shows that the quantity of regulation is not proportional to the quality of safety.

The safety and health disclosure system may likewise repeat this longstanding paradox. The most worrisome aspect is the “stigma effect” it could create. In industries such as construction and manufacturing, where the nature of the business inherently carries higher accident risks, companies may be judged as having poor safety management based solely on industrial accident figures and consequently be shunned by investors.

Figures that do not take into account differences in industry and working conditions cannot fully reflect a company’s actual safety level. Even so, if disclosure results directly affect corporate evaluations and investment decisions, companies will have little choice but to focus on making the numbers look better rather than making meaningful safety investments. A system intended to eliminate risk would instead encourage companies to conceal it.

The unequal burden of regulatory compliance costs is another problem. Separate from the disclosure system, since last June, workplaces that fail to properly conduct risk assessments have been subject to administrative fines of up to 10 million won regardless of company size. While this may be a manageable cost for large corporations, for small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 50 employees—many of which do not even have dedicated safety personnel—it could be a burden heavy enough to determine the very survival of the business.

Even if regulation appears fair, that does not mean its weight is equally shared. If the head of an SME must spend the day running around the worksite and the night filling out hundreds of pages of safety documents, there is less capacity left to identify and improve actual risk factors. When the cost of regulation exceeds productive capacity, the result is weaker SME competitiveness and greater strain on the supply chain.

This vicious cycle resembles the failure Britain experienced in the 1970s. Britain also responded to each accident by strengthening regulation and punishment, but this only deepened formalism at worksites. As laws became stricter, companies focused less on accident prevention and more on avoiding legal liability, while hidden risks remained untouched on the ground.

The solution Britain chose was not to pile on more laws. After enacting the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974, it established a system centered on the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), under which field experts worked with companies to diagnose risks. Companies were allowed to design their own safety rules suited to their workplaces, but were held strictly accountable for the results. It was a combination of autonomy and responsibility.

Korea’s safety administration still relies more on rules than on expertise. Although thousands of legal provisions tightly constrain worksites, the civil servants responsible for enforcing them are largely rotational appointees who move posts every two or three years. With no time for expertise to accumulate, regulation becomes sharp while enforcement remains weak. That is why the contradiction persists: paperwork is flawless, but worksites remain dangerous.

Of course, a system that transparently discloses corporate safety management conditions and holds companies accountable for accident prevention is necessary. But all industries and firms should not be judged by the same yardstick, nor should safety levels be assessed by the completeness of paperwork. Strengthening disclosure alone will not make risks at worksites disappear.

What the government should do is not demand more paperwork from companies. It should move away from a uniform system of ex ante regulation and punishment, and instead shift toward one that supports site-centered preventive activities and holds firms accountable for the results. Companies should be given the autonomy to manage risk, while being held clearly accountable for actual accidents and prevention outcomes.

The professionalism of enforcement must also be improved. Rather than relying on rotational assignments, the government should recruit safety specialists with science, engineering, and industrial field experience and assign them to these duties for the long term. Regulations that fail to understand the realities of the worksite cannot prevent accidents, no matter how detailed they are.

Companies that create wealth must not be dragged into a swamp of inefficiency in the name of safety. What is needed is not regulation that piles up paperwork, but sophisticated safety governance that eliminates risk at the worksite. Before the occupational safety and health disclosure system becomes entrenched, the regulatory framework itself must be reformed. Only then can Korea escape being “a country safe only on paper.”

Jigoeun, Intern Researcher, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

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Original title: [칼럼] '서류만 안전한 나라’ 돼서는 안 돼

Author: Go-eun Ji

Date: 2026-09-15

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=free_opinion&pn=1&idx=29537