I. Introduction (Summary and Major Points in Dispute)
In March 2014, I received an inquiry regarding a case of dismissal from Company X (hereinafter referred to as “the Company”) which is involved in the furniture wholesale business. The Company hired Employee Y (herein referred to as “the Employee”) as a translator and assigned her translation duties, but the Employee was unable to carry out her duties well, so the Company terminated the employment contract within the probationary employment period of three months. The Company did not issue a written dismissal notice during the final meeting with the Employee, but simply obtained her signature on the evaluation sheet for probationary employees. Two months after her termination, the Employee filed an application for remedy for unfair dismissal. Considering that the Employee had passed a tough interview process and had worked hard during the probationary period, the Employee claimed that the Company’s unilateral termination of her employment was unfair. For its part, the Company claimed that it had to terminate the employment contract after evaluating the Employee’s performance during the probationary period as the Employee’s translation skills were remarkably lower than expected or desired.
Major points of dispute in this dismissal of a probationary employee were: 1), whether the fact that the Company failed to issue a written dismissal notice was acceptable, and 2), whether the Employee’s signature on her evaluation sheet can be regarded as agreement with termination of employment. In cases where an employee’s signature on an evaluation sheet has not been regarded as agreement with termination of employment, termination has been considered unfair dismissal in violation of required dismissal procedures. The Labor Commission concluded on May 9, 2014 that this case would be regarded as if the employee had accepted termination indirectly, even though her signed evaluation sheet could not be seen as agreeing to termination, given that it was admissible that the employee’s translation skills were insufficient for her position as a professional translator, and that the Employee did not refuse to sign the probationary employee evaluation sheet.
Here, I would like to review the claims of each party, the Labor Commission’s judgment, and then the case itself.

II. Claims of both Parties regarding the Dismissal of a Probationary Employee
1. The Employee’s Claim:
The Employee applied for an open position through an employment agency, had three separate job interviews and also took a three-hour translating test before being awarded the job in early October, and was assigned to a translator on the translation team on October 16, 2013. The Employee had worked very hard with no instances of lateness or absenteeism since she started with the Company. The Employee had official language qualification scores of 104 (TOEFL) and 980 (TOEIC) as well as a Masters degree from one of the top ranking US Universities, and had performed part-time work as a translator for three different broadcasting companies.
The Employee had never made any agreement with the Company concerning termination of employment. The Company notified the Employee of the termination of employment during the probationary period, but this dismissal during the probationary period should require an objective and rational reason to qualify as justifiable dismissal. Without such qualification, this action by the Company must be considered as unfair dismissal. The Company’s dismissal is not justifiable due to the missing legal requirements such as a reason for dismissal, the severity of disciplinary punishment, and the dismissal process itself.
2. The Employer’s Claim:
The Company rescinded the offer of employment during the probationary period due to the Employee’s remarkably insufficient translation ability and relatively low-quality translations. As these results could be deemed reason for termination of employment in terms of not meeting reasonable standards, this could not be considered abuse of the employer’s right to revoke an offer of employment. On the other hand, as this employee herself confirmed when she signed the probation evaluation sheet, this verified that both parties mutually agreed on the termination of employment.
When the Employee began her probationary period on October 16, 2013, she was assigned to translation duties, which involved the translation of English-language documents into Korean. Her translations did not meet the expected basic quality, and her translation efforts took twice the time of her colleagues. As her work contained so many translation errors, liberal translations with different meanings drastically from the original material, in addition to spelling mistakes, the translation team manager had to frequently re-translate her finished work. On December 4, 2013, the translation team manager implemented an intermediate evaluation on the Employee’s performance for four items: 1) job knowledge; 2) work-performance quality; 3) cooperation with colleagues; and 4) communication skills. Except for cooperation with colleagues, she received the lowest evaluation result category (‘requires considerable improvement’) for all areas. The Employee signed her agreement with this evaluation.
On January 9, 2014, the translation team manager had a meeting with this employee, explained the evaluation results of the employee’s probationary period, and then informed her of termination of her employment. The evaluation sheet of the probationary employee, on its front side, refers to 4 fields: job knowledge, work-performance quality, cooperation with colleagues, and communication skills, while the reverse side stipulates: “① The Company hires the employee; ② The Company extends the probationary period; and ③ The Company terminates employment.” The translation team manager explained the results of the probationary evaluation that revealed an insufficiency for each rated item, and then, on the reverse side of the evaluation sheet, the manager checked the section “the Company terminates employment” and asked her to sign there for confirmation, after which she signed the evaluation sheet. In the meantime, the personnel team manager joined the meeting, and the Employee said: “My aptitude suggests that I prefer a marketing job to a translation job”. The personnel team manager suggested that the Employee could apply for an open position related to marketing, and later gave a business card to the Employee. As the interview process continued during the final evaluation meeting, the Employee confirmed the items regarding termination of her employment with the Company and then signed the probationary evaluation sheet. In this situation, where the employee herself even mentioned that she would be more qualified for marketing than for translation work, her termination was mutually agreed upon.

III. The Labor Commission’s Judgment
The major points of dispute in this case are firstly, whether or not there was a dismissal; and secondly, if there was a dismissal, whether or not such dismissal was justifiable. The Labor Commission, after considering both parties’ claims, reviewing various submitted verification documents, and direct interrogations during the judgment hearing regarding these points of dispute, judged this case as follows:
The Supreme Court ruled, “the dismissal of an employee during a probationary period, or the refusal to enter into an employment contract after the expiration of a probationary period, are interpreted more generously than general dismissal, as concerns the employer’s right to be able to cancel further employment, because the probationary system was designed to give the employer time to evaluate whether or not a new employe