Looking at the Government-Created 550,000 Jobs... Recycling Single-Use Products and Tourist Site Quarantine Also Classified as 'Non-Face-to-Face and Digital'

Government Holds 4th Emergency Economic Central Countermeasures Meeting
"Employment Retention as a 'Shield', New Jobs as a 'Spear' Needed," Emphasizes
Most Publicized Jobs Are Simple Quarantine and Maintenance Activities

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyun-jung] The government announced a plan to supply 550,000 jobs focused mainly on simple quarantine, maintenance, and computerization tasks in response to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) crisis. The initially proposed digital and youth-related jobs account for only a small portion, and the plan also includes quarantine and recycling tasks unrelated to these areas, leading to criticism that it is insufficient to respond to the mid- to long-term employment shock.

On the 20th, the government, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki at the Government Seoul Office, held the 'Emergency Economic Central Countermeasures Headquarters (Economic Central Headquarters) meeting' and announced that it will invest a total of 3.5 trillion won to supply 550,000 new jobs this year in five areas: ▲public jobs for vulnerable groups (300,000 jobs, 1.5 trillion won), ▲non-face-to-face jobs (100,000 jobs, 1 trillion won), ▲youth digital jobs (50,000 jobs, 500 billion won), ▲youth work experience jobs (50,000 jobs, 240 billion won), and ▲employment subsidy support (50,000 people, 300 billion won). Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, "One of the core elements to overcome the economic crisis and recover the economy is a defensive shield policy to maintain employment and an offensive spear policy to create new jobs," adding, "We will mobilize all means, including fiscal, tax, financial support, deregulation, and investment environment improvement, to ensure quality job creation in the private sector."

However, most of the job types announced on this day are limited to simple quarantine, maintenance, and computerization tasks, which critics say are far from the 'offensive spear' mentioned by Deputy Prime Minister Hong. First, in terms of scale, more than half of the jobs are welfare-oriented public jobs for vulnerable groups, requiring 15 to 30 hours per week and up to five months of work. Among single job types, the largest scale is quarantine activities (78,200 people) such as cleaning public bicycles or disinfecting transportation facilities, daycare centers, government offices, and senior centers to prevent infectious diseases. The government will support this with 393 billion won in national funds. For public rest area improvement jobs, such as maintaining walking trails and village rest spaces, 40,700 people (204.5 billion won) will be employed, and through local government specialized projects like making cloth masks or creating ecological gardens, 56,500 people (284 billion won) will be employed. Additionally, public jobs are categorized into 10 types: ▲support for alleyway commercial districts (3,900 people, 19.6 billion won), ▲support for agricultural and fishing village economic activities (18,200 people, 91.5 billion won), ▲improvement of cultural and artistic environments (14,600 people, 73.4 billion won), ▲emergency support for public tasks (45,200 people, 227.1 billion won), ▲industrial area environmental maintenance (19,300 people, 97 billion won), ▲disaster prevention (6,000 people, 30.1 billion won), and ▲youth support (17,400 people, 87.4 billion won), but there are no clear distinctions among these types.

The government also disclosed detailed plans to provide differentiated non-face-to-face and digital public jobs to 100,000 vulnerable workers, including youth, women, and the unemployed. First, jobs will be divided into data and content construction (64,000 people, 790 billion won) to establish a digital economy foundation and non-face-to-face administrative services (36,000 people, 240 billion won) for early recovery from COVID-19 damage, with jobs distributed across 17 ministries. However, some of these have been finalized as simple data entry tasks, such as converting research data (2,000 people), building databases (DB) of facility safety inspection results (2,300 people), constructing big data for safety and health (2,250 people), and creating a DB for hazardous materials handled in university and research institution laboratories (660 people). Quarantine projects at tourist sites (12,229 people) and single-use product recycling (10,840 people) are also classified as non-face-to-face and digital jobs. There are also many ambiguous or overlapping projects, such as support for the cultural and artistic sectors (11,559 people) and content creation for cultural industry development (5,846 people).

For the private sector, the government plans to create 50,000 youth digital jobs. If small and medium-sized enterprises hire unemployed youth for IT-utilizable positions, the government will support their wages for six months. The target is unemployed youth aged 15 to 34 and small and medium-sized enterprises with five or more employees. Support includes up to 1.8 million won per month per person and 100,000 won for indirect labor costs. The plan is to identify demand by categorizing jobs into content planning for websites or SNS, big data utilization, and simple computerization.

Additionally, a separate category called 'Youth Work Experience Support Jobs' will provide up to 800,000 won in wages and 10% management fees to youth whose new employment opportunities have decreased due to COVID-19. The target (aged 15 to 34, small and medium-sized enterprises with five or more employees) and working conditions are similar to youth digital jobs, but recruitment opportunities will be focused on tourism, hotel sectors, and private operating institutions. Employment subsidies will also be provided to 50,000 employers in small and medium-sized enterprises who have hired workers who became unemployed after the COVID-19 outbreak or newly hired under contracts of six months or longer, supporting up to 1 million won per month for up to six months (for small enterprises).

Meanwhile, job postings can be found on the Ministry of Employment and Labor or local government websites. The government plans to reflect these job creation tasks in the third supplementary budget bill to be announced early next month.

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