The government will expand its plan for granting regular job status to temporary workers in public workplaces until 2015, officials said Monday.

More contract workers at state-run offices and public companies will be made “indefinite contract workers,” who will have job conditions and security similar to that of permanent workers, the Ministry of Employment and Labor said.

The government has been making efforts to improve working conditions for irregular workers since 2011. But the new plan will affect more temporary public workers from offices that were not included in the previous plans, such as government-funded research institutes.

“As a part of President Park Geun-hye’s campaign policies on labor, the government has decided to include more contract workers from more offices,” an official at the ministry said.

A total of 249,614 workers were non-permanent employees in the public sector as of late last year, up about 3 percent from the previous year, according to a ministry survey. The number of contract workers increased last year because the government included school patrols, visiting nurses and others from new public institutions.

The government will single out contract workers who worked for the same workplace for more than two years by June. Some 41,000 are expected to become technically regular employees this year, officials said. About 22,000 contract workers became indefinite contract workers last year. Of the total, nearly half of workers granted regular job status were from education institutes and some 5,000 were from state-run agencies, the ministry said.

Indefinite contract workers will get lifetime employment status but salaries and welfare benefits will be similar to those of contract workers.

The average salary of a temporary public worker who has worked more than a year was 1.71 million won, similar to or slightly higher than that of private companies.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)