Hong Nam-ki "Resuming Civil Servant Recruitment from This Month... Providing 1.56 Million Jobs in Digital, Youth, and Vulnerable Groups" (Comprehensive)

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki is delivering opening remarks while presiding over the '3rd Emergency Economic Central Countermeasures Headquarters Meeting' held at the Gwanghwamun Government Seoul Office Building on the 14th.

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporters Kim Hyun-jung and Jang Se-hee] Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, announced that starting this month with the resumption of recruitment procedures for public officials and public institutions, 1.56 million jobs will be provided targeting youth, vulnerable groups, small and medium-sized enterprises, and focusing on digital and non-face-to-face sectors.

In his opening remarks at the 3rd Emergency Economic Central Countermeasures Headquarters (Economic Central Headquarters) meeting held at the Government Seoul Office Building, Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, "The COVID-19 crisis has caused significant quantitative and qualitative shocks and changes not only to immediate job losses but also to the overall labor and employment market. Therefore, along with urgent job measures, a broader perspective on complementary redesign of labor and employment systems is necessary." He explained, "On the 22nd of last month, we prepared an employment stability package worth a total of 10 trillion won to mitigate employment shocks and have been implementing follow-up measures. Among these, we will focus on providing 1.56 million jobs (including 19,000 already hired) mainly in the public sector."

He continued, "Of the 945,000 direct public sector jobs funded by the existing budget, about 600,000 jobs such as senior citizen jobs and self-support work projects, which have not been properly implemented due to COVID-19, will be converted as much as possible to non-face-to-face or outdoor work." He added, "We plan to promptly resume these by allowing maximum flexibility in execution, such as simplifying business procedures."

Furthermore, he said, "We will additionally create 550,000+α direct jobs including 100,000 public sector non-face-to-face digital jobs that help youth career development, 50,000 private sector youth digital jobs, 50,000 youth work experience jobs, 300,000 jobs for vulnerable groups, and 50,000 recruitment subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises." He emphasized, "Recruitment procedures for public officials and public institutions, which had only hired 19,000 people by April due to exam postponements, will resume this month, and we plan to hire 48,000 people as quickly as possible."

The 1.56 million jobs proposed by the government include the public sector jobs (945,000), non-face-to-face digital jobs (100,000), private youth digital jobs (50,000), youth work experience jobs (50,000), vulnerable group jobs (300,000), recruitment subsidies for small and medium-sized enterprises (50,000), and public official and public institution recruitment (48,000) explained by Deputy Prime Minister Hong. The government plans to finalize and implement detailed measures after discussing the urgent employment and job measures at this week's and next week's Economic Central Headquarters meetings, with the required funding to be reflected in the 3rd supplementary budget bill.

Deputy Prime Minister Hong also mentioned the recently passed laws in the National Assembly regarding the application of employment insurance to artists and the introduction of the National Employment Support System, stating, "We will review the groundwork for establishing a nationwide employment safety net centered on the Economic Central Headquarters, including strengthening protections for special-type workers (special employment types) and platform workers."

Additionally, the Economic Central Headquarters decided to discuss the 'Infectious Disease Response Industry Promotion Plan' on the same day. He said, "The COVID-19 crisis is both a challenge and an opportunity to foster post-COVID new growth industries such as K-quarantine." He emphasized, "We will actively support strengthening competitiveness in the three major areas of the infectious disease response system: ▲quarantine and prevention, ▲diagnosis and testing, and ▲vaccines and treatment, and strongly promote the so-called '3+1 promotion strategy' to establish the foundation for full-cycle system industrialization."

Deputy Prime Minister Hong explained, "In our world-leading quarantine and prevention sector, we will focus on developing predictive models using AI and big data, building and utilizing infectious disease research data databases (DB), and domestic production of core equipment. In the diagnosis and testing sector, we will expand industrialization support such as providing personnel and equipment from research institutions and supporting small and venture diagnostic kit manufacturers. In the vaccine and treatment phase, we will actively promote expanded support for research and development (R&D) and clinical trials of therapeutics and vaccines, as well as vaccine process development services." He added, "We will also promote the establishment of specialized infectious disease hospitals and a national infectious disease research institute to strengthen comprehensive response capabilities, and plan to establish the Korean infectious disease diagnostic method (3T: Test-Trace-Treat) as an international standard for the entire infectious disease response process."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.