Gov‘t, party officials to meet to address employment issues

Jun 20, 2018, 09:56 am

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President Moon Jae-in presides over a meeting with his top aides at Cheong Wa Dae on June 18. During a weekly meeting with Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon on the same day, Moon said, "The employment issue should be analyzed and approached in a large structure." He urged the Cabinet to respond first and foremost to the employment issue.

By AsiaToday reporter Joo Sung-sik

Officials from the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, the government, and the ruling Democratic Party (DP) will meet to discuss ways to stabilize the livelihoods of ordinary people. In particular, they plan to readjust budget spending to boost job creation, one of the major government projects. President Moon Jae-in also urged Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon and all ministries to take top priority in responding to employment issues.

Cheong Wa Dae, the government, and the DP will hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss follow-up measures to the U.S.-North Korea summit, including inter-Korean economic cooperation, and reunion of separated families, and to discuss ways to stabilize the livelihoods of ordinary people, such as creating jobs and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises followed by rise of minimum wage. The meeting is the first high-level meeting among the government and the party since the June 13 local elections and parliamentary by-elections.

Regarding job issues, there will be in-depth discussions on reviewing improvement plans of the current job stabilization fund system, which has been implemented as a follow-up measure to minimum wage hike, a new shorter work-hour system that will be implemented on July 1, and related budgeting and management strategies for next year.

The three groups have decided to concentrate on resolving job issues because they believe the DP's landslide victory of the June 13 local elections reflects not only the public's support for diplomacy and security policies, such as improvement of inter-Korean relations, but also people's hopes to resolve problems concerning their livelihoods, such as job creation and improvement in unemployment rate.

Kim Tae-nyeon, chief policymaker of the ruling party, said Tuesday, "I am well aware of the fact that recent employment market trends are grave. I will place my top priority for every economic policy on job creation."

In fact, the overall unemployment rate rose 0.4 percent points over the year to 4 percent in May, the highest in about 18 years, according to statistics released by the National Statistical Office last month.

"The Democratic Party will work together with the government to tackle unemployment," Kim said. "In order to do this, we will leave more budget for job creation in the next year's budget formulation so that the finances play a more active role." He also stressed that the party will focus on passing bills to create jobs, and said, "We plan to deal with the bills that strengthen the industrial economy and create quality jobs, as soon as possible."

President Moon also expressed willingness to actively create jobs. In a weekly meeting on Monday with Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon, Moon said, "The employment issue should be analyzed and approached in a large structure." He urged the Cabinet to respond first and foremost to the employment issue.

Moon also expressed his intention to directly manage the results of regulatory reform and key issues by presiding over a regulation reform meeting to be held at the Government Complex-Seoul on June 27. The regulation reform meeting, which is normally held by the prime minister, is a forum to discuss and review problems of regulating new growth industries that emerge as a result of innovation growth and creating quality jobs, such as drones, fin-tech, and self-driving cars.

#Government #Cheong Wa Dae #Democratic Party #employment