Just as it did last year, the government is promising to create 400,000 new jobs in 2005. To achieve that it has various follow-up plans that include creating 300,000 jobs in the public sector in the first half of the year. That is something natural for the government to be doing at a time when jobs are becoming increasingly unstable and there is more and more intense social disparity. But that is not enough. Changes in job policy have to be sought after in a somewhat larger framework.
The issue of jobs has been an important one ever since the financial crisis of 1997 and the government has made an effort, but the issue continues to be unresolved. It has actually become more of a problem. To begin with, there just aren't enough of them. There has been a sudden increase in irregular jobs, and the numbers of young people unable to find their first jobs and people who are self-employed in very minor operations are not decreasing. One of the major causes of that situation is that companies are restructuring and the country's industrial structure is changing, and then the government, saying it is going to back that up, has pursued polices designed to make a more flexible labor market. It goes without saying that the country's employment structure is changing in directions that hurt job stability. Add to that the fact that the population is changing and Korean society is ageing fast. If it wants to respond to the changes efficiently the government is going to have to adjust its job policy.
Creating jobs is the most desperate of tasks and should be of the greatest priority. But there should be no obsession with numbers, such as 300,000 or 400,000. Is not the government's own assessment that thought it passed last year's goal and succeeded in creating 418,000 new jobs in 2004 as far as substance that employment has been unsatisfactory? If the emphasis is on achieving the numbers there will invariably be a further increase in irregular jobs and it won't be of any help in fighting the disparity between different parts of society. The government needs to concern itself with job creation while simultaneously making sure people in irregular jobs are not wrongfully discriminated against. It has to draft blueprints for finding employment in productive fields for young people, the elderly, women, and the handicapped. It will have to combine that with an effort to improve the country's whole socio-economic system to make that happen.
The Hankyoreh, 20 January 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Job Policy Needs New Framework |
