President Park Geun-hye campaigned '474 vision' as economic pledges during her presidential election in 2012. The numeric acronym '474' stands for achieving the potential growth rate of 4 percent, employment rate of 70% and per capita income of US$40,000 during her 5-year presidential term. However, the surrounding situation is tough. The potential growth rate fell to below 3 percent and the per capita income remains stagnant, far from US$30,000.
The employment rate is not increasing as high as the government has planned. Rep. Kim Jong-min of the Minju Party of Korea, a member of the Strategy and Finance Committee of the National Assembly on October 4 unveiled his analysis on '70% Employment Rate Roadmap' designed by the Ministry of Employment and Labor(MOEL).
According to Rep. Kim, the MOEL achieved only 43.1 percent of its target goal as of July this year. The MOEL planned to achieve the employment rate target goal of 64.6 percent in 2014, 66.9 percent in 2015, 68.4 percent in 2016 and 70 percent in 2017, annually raising up the employment rate from 64.2 percent in 2012. However, the employment rate as of July this year was only 66.7 percent. The rate is even lower than the target goal of 2015. In August this year, the employment rate further slided by 0.4 percent point.
The problem is that the programs to generate the employment do not make progress or move backward. The government planned to find 500 new vocations and new industries by 2017, but 12.2 percent was achieved as of August, with only 61 jobs created, shy of 439 jobs from the target goal. The government also planned to foster 2,558 medium-sized enterprises but 36.6 percent was achieved. The job creation goal through the expansion of the social economy was achieved with a meager 10 percent.
The goal to improve the long working hours through the reduction of annual working hours to 1,900 hours in 2017, down from 2,092 hours in 2012 showed little progress. To achieve the goal, working hours have to be reduced by 192 hours, but the reality retreats to the longer working hours. According to the OECD Employment Outlook 2016, the annual working hours in Korea was 2,113 hours.
Rep. Kim said, "it has been apparent that most of the tasks prescribed in the MOEL's employment rate roadmap would not be achieved". He therefore suggested that the MOEL should focus more on the improvement of job quality and stability, getting rid of obsession over the target goal.
reported by Kim Hak-tae
edited in English by Kim Sung-jin