Pharmacist-turned-activist appointed presidential secretary for social affairs

New presidential secretary for social affairs Kim Kyoung-ja is a pharmacist-turned labor activist who previously served as a senior leader of Korea's largest umbrella labor federation. Kim, 59, began her career as a labor activist in the healthcare sector in 1995, serving as head of the Inha University Hospital's labor union under the Korean Federation of Hospital Workers' Union (KHMU) She later led the KHMU's Gyeonggi regional chapter from 1998 to 2005 and served as the union's vice president from 2006 to 2008. Kim went on to serve as a vice president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), one of Korea's largest labor federations, in 2009, 2013, and from 2015 to 2017.

She was also the federation's senior vice president from 2017 to 2020. Kim has also served as a member of the National Pension Fund Management Committee under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and worked as a visiting professor at Woosuk University in the southwestern city of Jeonju.