Moon Administration Increased Public Jobs by 80,000 Annually... 30% of New Hires Are in Their 60s and 70s

2.84 Million Jobs Last Year... 400,000 More Than 5 Years Ago
24,000 Jobs Increased for 50s... Highest Among All Age Groups
Public Enterprises Added 20,000 Jobs in One Year

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Song Seung-seop] Public sector jobs surpassed 2.8 million in the final year of the Moon Jae-in administration. Over the five years in power, the number of public sector jobs increased by 408,000. The age group with the largest increase in jobs was the established generation aged 50 and above.

According to Statistics Korea on the 19th, public sector jobs in 2021 reached 2.839 million, an increase of 73,000 jobs (2.6%) compared to the previous year. Compared to five years ago when there were 2.431 million jobs, it grew by 16.7%. The year-on-year growth rate eased somewhat from 6.1% in 2019 and 6.3% in 2020.

General government jobs accounted for 2.428 million, making up 85.5% of public sector jobs. Public enterprise jobs were 411,000 (14.5%). In terms of growth, public enterprises increased by 5.2% (20,000 jobs), surpassing the 2.2% (53,000 jobs) increase in general government. The proportion of public sector jobs among total employed persons was 10.3%, up 0.1 percentage points from the previous year.

The age group with the largest increase in jobs was those in their 50s, expanding by 24,000 jobs compared to the previous year. Those in their 40s followed with an increase of 16,000 jobs. The age group with the highest proportion of newly hired jobs was those aged 60 and above, with 30.2% of them obtaining new jobs. The proportion of continuous jobs was highest among those in their 40s at 94.4%.

The significant increase in jobs appears to be due to former President Moon’s policy of expanding public sector employment. After taking office, former President Moon set a plan as his first official directive to create 810,000 public jobs and implemented policies to expand public sector employment, including changing the evaluation methods of public institutions to focus on job creation. In response, affiliated public enterprises greatly expanded the scale of regular and non-regular employment in line with government policies.

Continuous jobs, where the same worker continued from the previous year, numbered 2.508 million (88.3%), up 2.1 percentage points from 2.387 million. Jobs replaced due to worker turnover or retirement were 234,000, also increasing from 206,000. On the other hand, newly created jobs due to business expansion were only 97,000, down 76,000 (2.8%) from 173,000 a year earlier.

By gender, men held 1.486 million jobs and women 1.353 million. In general government, the gender distribution was similar at 50.7% male and 49.3% female, but in the public sector overall, men accounted for 52.3%, 1.64 times more than women. Continuous jobs were more common among men at 53.6%, while newly hired jobs were dominated by women at 57.3%.

Regarding length of service, 41.4% had worked for 10 years or more. Those with less than 3 years of service accounted for 28.0%. The proportions of those working 10 to less than 20 years and 20 years or more were higher among men than women, while the proportion with less than 3 years was higher among women than men.

The industry with the highest job share was public administration, defense, and social security administration (48.7%). Educational services accounted for 27%, and health and social welfare services for 3.8%. The fastest growth was in educational services, which increased by 30,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, the Yoon Suk-yeol administration plans to reduce 17,230 positions out of 449,000 public institution staff. This will be the first reduction in public institution staff since the establishment of the 'Public Institution Modernization Plan' in 2009, marking 14 years since then.