Kakao subsidiary Linkage Lab said on Thursday it published a white paper titled "Linkyway" to mark its 10th anniversary, detailing outcomes from building a disability employment model and its operating experience.

Linkage Lab is a subsidiary-type standard workplace for employing people with disabilities that Kakao established in 2016. It has been working to support economic independence and expand employment opportunities by developing and broadening job competencies. As of February this year, 65 percent of its total workforce were employees with disabilities. Among them, 72 percent were people with severe disabilities.

The white paper systematised the full process of the employment model, including job development, training, operations and performance, and presented a "specialised job-based employment model". It introduced how a subsidiary-type standard workplace is operated and a model for job composition. It also covered a hiring method that selects talent based on job suitability and the process of expanding the scope of employment.

Beyond internal cafe staff and a health keeper in-house welfare employment model, it expanded job areas into specialised fields such as artificial intelligence (AI) quality operations, design and digital accessibility IT.

Linkage Lab's IT Service Operations Center started with 16 people in 2016 and recorded 84 last year, growing fivefold.

Linkage Lab CEO Daeyoung Park (박대영) said, "The white paper is the product of systematically organising the disability employment operating experience and outcomes accumulated over the past 10 years." He added, "We will continue to expand an employment model that can enhance corporate competitiveness."