Salad’s Return of Social Enterprise Certification
Dear Audience and Social Media Followers of Salad,
On April 2. 2025, Salad submitted an application to the Ministry of Employment and Labor to return its Social Enterprise Certification. According to regulations, in order for a business that has been on hiatus for more than two years to maintain its Social Enterprise Certification, it must employ at least three full-time employees. The Ministry of Employment and Labor issued an administrative order to immediately hire employees and provide them with unemployment benefits. However, due to a lack of capital, we had no choice but to make the difficult decision to return the certification.
Although the government operates a certification system, the decision to resume business operations after a hiatus is fundamentally within the authority of the company. Therefore, we could not comply with the unjust order to resume business immediately.
Despite my efforts to maintain our Social Enterprise Certification by requesting through the National Petition System that the Ministry of Employment and Labor reconsider and change the administrative order to a warning or a less severe measure, all our petitions were rejected.
Since obtaining the Social Enterprise Certification on May 15, 2014, Salad has actively engaged in creating and distributing content related to cultural diversity, and has also contributed to creating jobs for migrant and Korean artists. From the time Salad was founded in 2009, through obtaining the preliminary social enterprise certification in 2012 and the full certification in 2014, Salad continued its operations and connected with over 100,000 audience members nationwide until it entered a long hiatus in 2022 due to the worsening economic situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thanks to the Social Enterprise Job Creation Support Program, our team members were able to receive salaries while doing the work they love. Despite the low invitation fees, Salad was able to hold performances at educational institutions and public organizations across the country. One member, returning to their hometown, withdrew their pension insurance in a lump sum to use as a settlement fund, while another built a house in their hometown with the salary and performance fees they earned from Salad. For this reason, I would like to commend the Social Enterprise Certification system and its supporting policies.
However, the cruel bureaucracy of the Ministry of Employment and Labor, which could not wait a few more months for the end of Salad's hiatus in October and instead threatened a fine for failure to resume operations, will never receive praise.
Although we are returning the Social Enterprise Certification, Salad’s activities will continue.
Sincerely,
Kyong Ju Park, CEO of Salad
| <Detailed Article on Salad’s Social Enterprise Certification Return Incident> Ministry of Employment and Labor Forces Employment of Workers at Inactive Social Enterprises, Requests Corrective Actions, and Plans to Impose Fines
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