Announcement of the 3rd Emergency Economic Central Countermeasures Headquarters Meeting
Supplying 550,000 Direct Jobs Including 300,000 Jobs for Vulnerable Groups in Existing Public Jobs Such as Senior Jobs and Self-Support Work Projects
On the 13th, citizens are waiting to receive consultations for unemployment benefits applications and employment support at the Seoul Employment Welfare Plus Center in Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@
[Sejong=Asia Economy reporters Kim Hyun-jung and Jang Se-hee] The government announced that it will promptly supply 1.54 million jobs to respond to the rapidly frozen employment market caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) crisis. However, most of the measures presented by the government are existing public sector jobs, and the additionally announced jobs are criticized for being closer to welfare policies than employment.
On the 14th, Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, held the 3rd Emergency Economic Central Countermeasures Headquarters meeting and announced that 1,543,000 public sector cushion jobs will be provided promptly. In his opening remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, "The COVID-19 crisis is causing a significant quantitative and qualitative shock and change not only in immediate job losses but also across the labor and employment market," adding, "Along with urgent job measures, a complementary redesign of the labor and employment system from a broader perspective is necessary." This statement was made in light of the April employment figures announced the previous day, which showed a decrease of 476,000 employed persons compared to the previous year, marking the largest decline since February 1999 (658,000) during the foreign exchange crisis.
As a countermeasure to this employment shock, the 1.54 million jobs proposed by the government consist of 945,000 direct public sector jobs funded by the existing budget, 550,000 additional direct jobs discovered in the non-face-to-face and digital sectors, and 48,000 government and public institution recruitments to resume from this month. The direct public sector jobs include about 600,000 senior citizen jobs and self-support work projects. The non-face-to-face and digital sectors include 100,000 non-face-to-face digital jobs, 50,000 private sector youth digital jobs, 50,000 youth work experience jobs, 300,000 jobs for vulnerable groups, and 50,000 subsidies for hiring in small and medium-sized enterprises. The government plans to discuss the urgent employment and job measures at this week's and next week's Economic Central Countermeasures meetings, finalize and promote the detailed plans, and reflect the required funds in the 3rd supplementary budget bill.
However, some critics argue that the job measures announced by the government on this day are merely a repetition of existing public work programs. In fact, about 1,295,000 jobs, which account for 84% of the announced job supply, including direct public sector jobs, vulnerable groups, and youth work experience, are close to welfare-type tax-funded jobs with low productivity and sustainability. Regarding this, Professor Cho Jun-mo of Sungkyunkwan University's Department of Economics said, "The core of the digital New Deal previously announced by the government is in the health, environment, and medical fields, but the alternative presented this time still has a large portion occupied by senior citizen jobs," calling it a "mismatch with the policy slogan." Regarding youth jobs, he advised, "For university seniors on the employment front, they could be grouped as the COVID-19 generation similar to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) foreign exchange crisis era," adding, "If a generation skips employment, it could cause a loss of national human resources, so a non-face-to-face employment training program should be created."
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