South Korea's Celebrated School Lunches Face a Staffing and Safety Crisis

Full Lunch Trays, Empty Kitchen Jobs

South Korea's school kitchens were about 4 percent below their national quota of 44,000 workers in March 2025, while applications in Seoul fell 84.5 percent short of available positions. Behind the colorful lunches admired on social media, schools are struggling to retain the people who prepare them.

The shortage threatens a universal free lunch program that feeds students regardless of their economic background. Photographs of metal trays filled with steaming rice, seasoned vegetables, carefully portioned proteins and varied side dishes have become symbols of the country's nutritional standards. Producing those meals, however, requires workers to endure low pay, demanding physical labor and exposure to dangerous cooking fumes.

Since 2021, authorities have recognized 178 cases of lung cancer among school meal workers as occupational diseases. Fifteen workers have died from these conditions in recent years. Meanwhile, thousands have left their jobs before retirement, recruitment has fallen short, and strikes have interrupted meal service.

The response has included proposals for frying robots, kitchen ventilation improvements and changes to the School Meals Act. Workers and their representatives say the central problems remain staffing, wages and safety. A kitchen cannot consistently deliver varied, freshly prepared meals when experienced employees leave faster than replacements can be recruited and trained.

The strain has already reached students. In Seoul's affluent Seocho district, parents complained after schools reduced the variety of side dishes when just two workers became responsible for feeding more than 1,000 students. The pressure is therefore visible both behind the kitchen doors and on the lunch tray.

Why Workers Are Leaving

Between January and November 2024, 3,198 school kitchen workers resigned before reaching retirement age. They accounted for 60.4 percent of all departures during that period. Many new employees left within six months, unable to withstand the physical demands and working environment.

Recruitment figures show how difficult replacing them has become. Nationwide efforts in 2025 attracted 29 percent fewer applications than available openings. Seoul's application shortfall of 84.5 percent was much larger, despite high unemployment in other sectors.

The national staffing gap also represents a substantial number of missing workers. A shortfall of approximately 4 percent against a quota of 44,000 amounts to roughly 1,760 unfilled positions. Each vacancy leaves remaining employees with more preparation, cooking, serving and cleaning.

Lee Gap-suk, a school kitchen worker in Seoul with seven years of experience, described how frequent departures affect daily operations:

Among 15 workers in our kitchen, only four have more than a year of experience, as most leave within two to three years. We serve too many students, but there is little time to build teamwork because people do not stay long.

Each worker typically bears responsibility for feeding about 200 students and teachers every day. The job covers the whole meal cycle, from preparing ingredients to washing up after service. Lee's account shows why headcount alone tells only part of the story: kitchens also need experienced teams that can coordinate their work.

A Monthly Wage With Months Without Pay

School meal workers earn base salaries of just over 2 million won a month, approximately 1,740 Singapore dollars or 1,400 US dollars. The compensation leaves many close to the economic margins of South Korean society, even before interruptions in pay during school vacations.

Many workers receive no wages during school breaks despite remaining on call or performing maintenance duties. The three month unpaid vacation period creates a recurring loss of income and pushes employees toward jobs with more stable earnings.

Some workers receive as little as 730,000 won a month for cleaning services during the vacation period. For a household depending on the school kitchen wage, the difference between a regular working month and a school break is substantial.

Unions are seeking the elimination of that unpaid period and a monthly base salary increase of 90,880 won to bring pay above the projected minimum wage. Education authorities have offered an increase of 72,000 won, leaving a difference of 18,880 won a month between the two positions.

Workers also want holiday bonuses calculated at 120 percent of monthly base salary, in line with their demand for pay equity with national public employees. Officials instead offered a flat annual increase of 50,000 won. The dispute concerns both the amount paid and whether bonuses should rise with a worker's salary.

The Health Cost of Preparing Thousands of Meals

Authorities have recognized 178 lung cancer cases among school meal workers as occupational diseases since 2021. Recognition means the illness has been accepted as related to the person's work. Lung cancer incidence among these workers is more than five times higher than in other professions.

Fifteen workers have died from these conditions in recent years. One woman died of lung cancer on April 18 while still pursuing legal recognition of her workplace illness.

Medical research identifies prolonged exposure to aerosolized cooking emissions during frying and other food preparation at high temperatures as a hazard. Aerosolized emissions are tiny particles and droplets carried through the air, where workers can breathe them into their lungs. The World Health Organization classifies these emissions as Group 1 carcinogens capable of damaging lung tissue.

Workers describe kitchens where ventilation fails to remove smoke. One employee described air that felt as though it was killing her lungs with every shift. Poor extraction leaves staff exposed while they continue preparing meals against a fixed lunchtime deadline.

Woo Si-bon, head director of the national education staff department under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, described how heat adds to the danger:

Workers say they continue to cook in stifling heat trapped inside aging buildings with outdated or malfunctioning ventilation. Summers bring conditions that many call unbearable. Kitchen temperatures routinely exceed 33 degrees Celsius, and workers dressed in long sleeves and rubber boots report feeling temperatures above 45 degrees.

School cafeteria industrial accident cases rose 17.5 percent last year to more than 2,100 incidents. Burns, injuries to muscles and joints, and other trauma were among the cases. The accident rate of 3.7 percent was more than five times the national industrial average.

Healthcare professionals recommend increasing staffing so workers can spend longer intervals away from frying duties. More employees would spread the exposure and ease the physical burden of preparing food in large quantities. Adequate staffing would also reduce pressure to rush before lunch service, lowering accident risks.

Why Frying Robots Have Not Solved the Problem

Education authorities have proposed frying robots and ventilation upgrades as ways to reduce the burden on kitchen workers. Field testing, however, has exposed a gap between what the machines can do and what school meals require.

The robots deployed so far cost more than 100 million won each. They also bring substantial maintenance expenses to kitchen budgets already under strain. Their current capabilities are concentrated on frying frozen products that are ready to cook.

Lee Gap-suk explained why that limitation matters for kitchens preparing varied meals from fresh ingredients:

Robots can handle ready-to-cook frozen fried products, but such processed foods are rarely used in school lunches, so workers still have to bread, coat and fry food by hand,

Workers must therefore continue much of the preparation and frying that the technology is supposed to ease. Expanding reliance on processed products would also conflict with the approach behind South Korea's school lunch program.

An official from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions representing nonregular school workers described the spending priorities preferred by some kitchen staff:

At a time when using robots is not yet practical, there is a view from the field that it would be better to allocate budgets to ventilation improvements or hiring additional staff.

Ventilation Upgrades Are Behind Schedule

The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education announced plans in 2023 to fully upgrade school kitchens by 2027. By late 2025, only about 12 percent of the improvements had been completed in the capital.

Nationwide completion stood at 41 percent. Seoul was therefore 29 percentage points below the national figure, using the reported completion rates of 12 percent and 41 percent. Gyeonggi Province and Incheon were also behind schedule.

The slow progress leaves workers continuing to cook in environments where smoke and heat are not adequately removed. Ventilation upgrades address the air workers breathe, while extra staffing addresses the amount of work and time each person spends on demanding duties. Both are central to the proposals for safer kitchens.

The main developments span several years:

• Since 2021, authorities have recognized 178 lung cancer cases among school meal workers as occupational diseases.
• In 2023, Seoul's education office announced a plan to complete kitchen upgrades by 2027.
• Between January and November 2024, 3,198 workers resigned before retirement age.
• In March 2025, kitchen staffing was approximately 4 percent below the national quota of 44,000.
• By late 2025, ventilation improvement completion stood at about 12 percent in Seoul and 41 percent nationwide.
• In late November 2025, a phased nationwide strike disrupted school meal services.

Strikes Bring the Dispute Into Schools

School meal workers joined other nonregular school staff in a phased nationwide strike in late November 2025. More than 11,400 workers participated in the initial days, and meal service was disrupted at more than 1,900 schools.

The affected areas included Seoul, Incheon, Gangwon Province, North Chungcheong Province, and the Jeolla and Jeju regions. The disruption showed how closely the lunch program depends on the availability of its kitchen workforce.

The School Irregular Workers' Solidarity Council organized the strike after ten rounds of negotiations with education authorities failed to produce acceptable terms. The council accused government negotiators of repeatedly responding to demands with phrases such as "not acceptable" and "under review". It explained its decision to strike:

Their avoidance has pushed us into this strike,

The workers' demands combine pay equity, improved holiday bonuses, an end to the unpaid vacation period and safer working conditions. Recruitment and retention are tied to those issues: a school can advertise a vacancy, but filling it and keeping the employee depend on what the job pays and what it requires.

Proposals to Put Staffing and Safety Into Law

Progressive Party Representative Jeong Hye-kyung introduced amendments to the School Meals Act that would formally define school meal workers in the law. The proposal would also require comprehensive health and safety plans every three years.

Jeong's amendments would establish staffing standards through a presidential decree, a rule issued under the law. They would also guarantee seats for parents and worker representatives on school meal committees, giving both groups a formal role in discussions about meal provision.

Democratic Party Representative Ko Min-jung introduced separate amendments. Both bills targeted passage through the National Assembly's Education Committee before the end of 2025. A date for their passage is not given.

The proposals address responsibilities that extend beyond individual kitchens. Formal staffing standards would set expectations for how many workers schools need, while recurring safety plans would require authorities to revisit workplace risks rather than leave them to daily kitchen management.

A Wider Labor Shortage Offers Limited Relief

South Korea faces more than 500,000 job vacancies across key industrial sectors, driven by an aging population and rapid technological transformation. School kitchens are competing for employees within that wider shortage.

The Ministry of Justice has begun easing visa restrictions to attract foreign workers. The changes include streamlined routes for culinary trainees through the D-4 visa category and expanded E-7 skilled worker visas for manufacturing and technology sectors.

Those immigration measures offer limited immediate relief for school cafeterias. Preparing Korean cuisine and communicating with school administrations require particular language and cultural skills. The immediate challenge remains retaining existing staff and attracting new employees by improving domestic working conditions.

The profession has long been stigmatized as low skilled labor, despite the coordination required to prepare large numbers of varied meals safely and on time. Lee's description of constant turnover shows the practical value of experience: workers need time to learn their roles and develop teamwork.

What Education Budgets Prioritize

Lee Byoung-hoon, professor emeritus of sociology at Chung-Ang University, described the crisis as a matter of institutional values and spending choices:

Ultimately, this is about budget priorities within education authorities. Improving conditions for school meal workers can be sufficiently funded if it takes precedence over spending on unnecessary facility upgrades and other ancillary costs.

Workers, healthcare professionals and union representatives point to connected needs: enough staff to share the workload, ventilation that removes hazardous emissions, and pay that continues to support employees through the school calendar. Machines have a narrower role while their capabilities remain limited to products rarely used in school lunches.

Students depend on those decisions as much as kitchen staff do. The reduced side dish variety reported in Seocho shows how staffing shortages can affect the nutritional program's daily delivery. Continued pressure risks replacing diverse meals planned by nutritionists with more standardized processed food.

South Korea's celebrated lunches rest on more than attractive trays. They depend on a workforce able to prepare fresh food without sacrificing its health or financial security. Keeping that workforce in place is central to keeping the meals varied, reliable and available to every student.

Key Points

• School kitchen staffing was about 4 percent below a national quota of 44,000 in March 2025, equivalent to roughly 1,760 vacancies.
• Between January and November 2024, 3,198 workers resigned before retirement, accounting for 60.4 percent of departures.
• Authorities have recognized 178 occupational lung cancer cases since 2021; 15 workers have died in recent years.
• Base pay is just over 2 million won monthly, and many workers face a three month period without wages during school vacations.
• By late 2025, kitchen ventilation improvements were about 12 percent complete in Seoul and 41 percent complete nationwide.
• More than 11,400 workers joined the initial days of a strike that disrupted meals at more than 1,900 schools in November 2025.
• Proposed School Meals Act amendments seek formal worker definitions, recurring safety plans, staffing standards and representation on meal committees.
• Seoul's kitchen upgrade plan has a 2027 completion target.