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Same Desk, Different Grade: Court Rules That Giving Veterans a Higher Job Title at Hire Is Sex Discrimination

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A Korean administrative court has drawn a clear line between two types of preferential treatment for military veterans in hiring: crediting service time toward pay is lawful, but assigning veterans a higher job grade from day one is not. Here are the key points.

Issue

Does a personnel policy that assigns newly hired veterans a higher job grade than non-veterans — not just a higher pay step — constitute unlawful sex discrimination under Korean employment equality law?

Facts

  • Corporation B hired university graduates under a policy that gave non-veterans a starting rank of Grade 6, Step 10, while veterans received Grade 5, Step 12 — two steps higher in pay and one full grade higher in rank.
  • Female employee A filed a complaint with the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, arguing the policy violated the Equal Employment Opportunity Act by discriminating on the basis of sex in both pay and promotion.
  • The Commission dismissed the complaint, finding the differential treatment was not unreasonable discrimination against women.
  • A challenged the Commission’s dismissal in court.

Rule

  • The Act on the Employment Support of Discharged Soldiers permits military service to be counted as work experience when determining pay steps or wages. It does not authorize crediting military service toward promotion.
  • The Equal Employment Opportunity Act explicitly prohibits employers from discriminating between men and women in promotion.
  • Under Korean law, “veterans” are defined as those who have completed service under the Military Service Act, the Military Personnel Management Act, or the Act on Alternative Service — a category that in practice consists overwhelmingly of men, given that military service is mandatory for men but not women.

Court Decision

  • The Seoul Administrative Court (Administrative Division 8, Presiding Judge Yang Sun-ju) ruled in favor of A on February 11, 2026, finding the Commission’s dismissal unlawful.
  • The court held that while awarding veterans higher base pay through additional pay steps is permissible, assigning them a higher job grade altogether is a different matter entirely — it cannot be treated as merely a pay differential.
  • The practical consequence of the grade difference was stark: a woman hired at Grade 6 would take two additional years to reach Grade 4, compared to a male veteran hired directly at Grade 5. Veterans also accumulated higher performance evaluation scores during that period due to their earlier grade placement, compounding the disadvantage over time.
  • The court found that Corporation B’s work had no direct connection to military service that would justify treating it as a relevant career credential for promotion purposes.
  • Significantly, the court noted that Corporation B itself had already revised its policy during the litigation — equalizing the entry grade while retaining the pay step differential — which the court interpreted as an implicit acknowledgment that the grade difference could not be justified as a mere byproduct of the pay step difference.

Key Takeaways

  • Crediting military service toward pay steps at hire: lawful under the Act on the Employment Support of Discharged Soldiers.
  • Crediting military service toward a higher starting job grade: unlawful sex discrimination under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act.
  • The distinction matters because job grade directly affects promotion timelines and performance evaluations — downstream consequences that extend well beyond the initial pay difference.
  • Where an organization’s work has no substantive connection to military skills or experience, there is no legitimate basis for treating military service as a career credential for promotion purposes.
  • An employer’s mid-litigation revision of the discriminatory policy can itself be treated as evidence that the original policy lacked justification.

Why This Matters

This ruling clarifies the boundary between permissible recognition of military service and impermissible sex-based discrimination in the workplace — a distinction that many Korean organizations with veteran-preference hiring policies may not have drawn carefully. For HR practitioners and employment lawyers, the message is precise: pay steps tied to service duration can survive legal scrutiny, but rank or grade advantages that accelerate promotion timelines for a predominantly male group cannot. Organizations that have not yet audited their veteran-preference policies in light of this decision should do so promptly.

Article: https://www.lawtimes.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=219548&page=2&total=25035

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