Every Thursday, a postal carrier in Gangjin, South Jeolla Province, knocks on an elderly resident's gate with a lunchbox in hand. After delivering the side dishes, the carrier lingers for about five minutes to check on the resident's wellbeing — how their complexion looks today, whether anything seems different from usual. When the carrier leaves, the elderly resident stands at the gate until the vehicle disappears from view. This is a scene from the "Wellbeing Connection Lunchbox Delivery Service," launched for the first time in the nation by Gangjin County in partnership with the Jeonnam Regional Postal Service Headquarters and the Korea Post Public Welfare Foundation. The service goes beyond simple delivery: when a carrier detects warning signs in the field, the case is immediately connected to emergency care or healthcare services.
During the same period, global corporations are moving in the opposite direction. Last month, Meta let go of about 8,000 employees, roughly 10% of its entire workforce. It was not because of poor performance. The company's revenue for the quarter reached 86 trillion won, up 33% from a year earlier. Amazon also cut 30,000 office jobs over about four months. The reason is that artificial intelligence (AI) can now handle research, coding, and planning tasks. These Big Tech companies' AI infrastructure investments this year are projected to approach 1,000 trillion won. Investment is rising while jobs are shrinking. "Jobless growth" is becoming the new formula for global corporations.
Amid this trend, the choice made by the Gangjin Post Office stands out. The situation facing post offices is far from easy. As digitalization has caused ordinary mail volumes to drop by more than 40% over the past decade, costs such as labor expenses have risen, making the profitability of the postal business a challenge. Yet the Gangjin Post Office created new work for its carriers to do. Carriers personally visit elderly residents living alone, while the remaining colleagues divide the postal work among themselves to fill the gap.
This is not merely a heartwarming story. It is one answer to the question of what role public infrastructure should play in the age of AI transformation. Gangjin County is a prime example of a region at risk of extinction. The proportion of its population aged 65 and older is more than five times that of those aged 14 and under. This is not Gangjin's story alone. The number of regions at risk of extinction grew from three in 2015 to 62 last year. Care personnel at the local government level are insufficient, and because the homes of elderly residents are in remote locations, services often fail to reach them properly. Areas that AI can make more efficient are being rapidly automated, but care for the elderly population cannot be solved through automation.
There is another reason the Gangjin model is meaningful. This project is designed not merely to deliver food but to connect the information carriers verify in the field to an integrated care system. Public institutions and local welfare infrastructure do not operate separately; instead, dense postal delivery networks are linked into a single regional care network. It is a case in which public infrastructure has been used to strengthen a structure of people connecting people, rather than allowing technology to sever connections.
It is encouraging that the Korea Post Public Welfare Foundation has announced plans to expand this project nationwide. However, since the current structure relies on the voluntary efforts of carriers, this is a time when discussion is needed to make it sustainable. One option to consider is stable support for the personnel and budget needed for the post office's public care function. Furthermore, if the wellbeing information carriers collect in the field is linked through a data-sharing system to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety's integrated care system, the Gangjin model could develop into standard care infrastructure that works anywhere in the country. The more AI transformation accelerates, the clearer the public sector's role should become in areas that cannot be automated.
In an era when astronomical sums of money are pouring into AI, there is a reason the image of a Gangjin postal carrier pausing to check an elderly resident's complexion comes into sharper focus. It is because, among the things technology is rapidly replacing, the value of what cannot be replaced becomes ever more distinct. Protecting that value — that is what the public sector must do now.
