[Opinion] The Flood of Public Advertisements Reflects the Expansion of Public Bureaucracy

Kim Kyung-jun, Vice Chairman of Deloitte Consulting

On TV, radio, and other media, people naturally encounter advertisements from private companies. The techniques and methods vary, but ultimately, the content aims to encourage the purchase of products and services. Public service advertisements warning against smoking, alcoholism, and drunk driving also appear. Occasionally, advertisements featuring local government heads or public enterprise leaders directly appear. Their somewhat awkward voices reading stiff scripts made it difficult to empathize. At best, these elected officials were dismissed as using budgets under the pretext of promoting their institutions to make themselves known to voters.

However, public service advertisements, which used to be encountered like seasoning among private company ads, now seem to overflow like a flood. A few years ago, while getting off a train and walking toward the exit, I was puzzled to see the advertising boards in the station plastered with ads from local governments or public enterprises. It was hard to find a reason for such large-scale promotion by the public sector rather than private companies. Recently, I have felt the surge of public sector advertisements even more on social media. Most of the videos?such as "Let's increase the birth rate," "We must work even as we age," "Public buses are convenient," "Pay taxes faithfully," and "Health insurance is safe"?are messages that citizens might as well not hear. Although they feature models, music, and choreography to appear sophisticated in line with current trends, the messages remain clich?d and banal.

Even advertisements from central government ministries emphasizing "equal communication, flexible work, and strict adherence to leaving work on time" related to organizational culture innovation left me feeling bewildered. It was difficult to understand the reason and legitimacy behind inefficient public institutions preaching digital-age organizational culture to the general public.

The absolute premise for private companies existing in a competitive market can be summarized as "If you sell, you survive; if you don't, you die." If sales are sluggish, the invested cash is not recovered, leading to bankruptcy. Therefore, companies engage in various marketing activities, including advertising. The success or failure of marketing, which involves huge costs, is a critical matter that determines survival. In contrast, advertising in the public sector is a supplementary activity for simple promotion. Sales of public services, which hold a monopolistic position without competition in the market, are guaranteed. Therefore, many advertisements are self-satisfying or intended for internal reporting to superiors.

The reason for mentioning the seemingly trivial increase in public service advertisements is that it reflects a broader trend where the private sector stagnates while the public sector expands. Taxes and levies rise under various pretexts, and the number of public sector employees, including civil servants with lifetime job security, increases significantly. Over the past four years, the number of civil servants and public institution employees has increased by 220,000, and last year, public sector labor costs reached 89.5 trillion won. In contrast, during the same period, hiring by the top 500 domestic companies increased by 30,000, and last year's labor costs were 85.9 trillion won, falling short of the public sector.

The increase in lifetime-secure public sector jobs is a serious issue that distorts the workforce structure in the long term, leading to a decline in economic vitality. In May, Statistics Korea revealed that 32% of 850,000 young job seekers aspire to become civil servants. Amid the declining absolute number of the younger generation due to the downward trend in birth rates, the unproductive public sector's expansion is becoming a vicious cycle.

While the private sector, which creates economic added value, stagnates, the true nature of the bloated public sector consuming it is reflected in the flood of advertisements and rising labor costs. This phenomenon is hard to accept for taxpayers, such as self-employed individuals who faithfully pay taxes despite suffering from the recession caused by COVID-19.

Renowned economist Todd G. Buchholz analyzed the rise and fall of representative nations throughout history in his book Thinking About the Nation Again. He concluded that economic prosperity escaping poverty commonly ended in catastrophe due to "declining birth rates and increasing public debt." From this perspective, the current situation in our country is like driving on a highway toward disaster. The increasingly frequent public advertisements in daily life are, paradoxically, warning lights of rising public debt. A fundamental shift in the roles and resource allocation between the private and public sectors is urgently needed.

Kim Kyung-jun, Vice Chairman, Deloitte Consulting