Presidential Office Official "Reviewed but Not a Confirmed Matter"
The Presidential Office is reportedly considering an internal organizational restructuring, including the establishment of a new Chief of Science and Technology. This move aims to reduce the excessive workload of some chief offices and accelerate key national policy tasks.
According to the Presidential Office on the 13th, there has been recent consideration of separating the duties of the Office of the Secretary for Science and Technology under the Chief of Economic Affairs to create a Chief of Science and Technology.
President Yoon has emphasized that science and technology must support the future national competitiveness, and that the government must prepare policies accordingly.
In particular, as the establishment of the Space and Aeronautics Administration and the leap into the era of super-large artificial intelligence (AI) have emerged as pressing issues, the workload of the Office of the Secretary for Science and Technology has reportedly become excessive.
The Office of the Chief of Social Affairs is also reportedly under review for restructuring or functional adjustment. The Office of the Chief of Social Affairs oversees five secretariats: health and welfare, employment and labor, education, climate and environment, and culture and sports.
Although the Office of the Chief of Social Affairs transferred the labor reform sector to the Office of the Chief of National Planning in March as part of the three major reforms, it has still been evaluated that the workload remains excessive, limiting the ability to swiftly advance reforms in education and pensions.
For this reason, a plan to separate environmental and labor affairs and establish a Chief of Environment and Labor is also said to be under discussion. During the Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in administrations, the positions of Chief of Employment and Welfare and Chief of Jobs were respectively established.
If the new positions of Chief of Science and Technology and Chief of Environment and Labor are created this time, the current '2 offices and 6 chiefs' system will expand to '2 offices and 7 chiefs' or even '8 chiefs.'
A Presidential Office official stated, "In the case of science and technology, although it is an economic matter, it is related to the future, such as investment and research and development (R&D), so the establishment of a Chief of Science and Technology has been considered. It is also true that there have been opinions that the Chief of Social Affairs has many reform tasks. However, nothing has been finalized yet."
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