1 Trillion Won Spent on Hastily Created Non-Face-to-Face and Digital Jobs, Mostly Short-Term Part-Time Positions Abound

115,000 Gradual Job Postings
Up to 1.8 Million KRW Monthly, Minimum Wage Level
Work for Up to 4 Months Until the End of This Year
Simple Tasks, Uncertain Youth Career Support
"No Plans to Maintain the Project Next Year Yet"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] A total of 115,000 public jobs in the non-face-to-face and digital sectors are being created. The government is investing about 1 trillion won in the budget. The salary is at the minimum wage level, and if working 40 hours a week, one can earn about 1.8 million won per month. Many of these jobs are temporary, lasting at most about four months until the end of this year, and mostly involve simple tasks, so it is uncertain whether they will help young people develop their careers.

According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor and related ministries on the 16th, the government will support a total of 115,000 people through 60 projects in the non-face-to-face and digital job sectors in response to the employment crisis caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). Initially, the government planned to create 104,000 jobs with a budget of 1.0524 trillion won, but after the National Assembly reviewed the supplementary budget bill, the budget was reduced to 972.7 billion won, and the number of jobs increased to 115,000.

Due to the limited budget and the rush to create a large number of jobs, the salary level has decreased and the working period has shortened. To create jobs that can be executed within this year, 18 ministries and affiliated public institutions were mobilized. A Ministry of Employment official said, "It has not been decided whether the same job projects will be operated next year," adding, "We need to monitor changes in the COVID-19 situation."

The government promised to create jobs that help young people gain work experience and develop their careers, but upon examining the projects, most jobs were at the level of simple part-time work.

The project with the largest number of hires is the Ministry of Education’s university online lecture support project. Under the name "Online Remote Helper," 4,200 people will support remote classes for the second semester at universities. Starting at the end of this month, each university will post recruitment notices and hire about 6 to 15 people. They assist professors who are not familiar with remote education by doing tasks such as video editing and creating subtitles. Working 40 hours a week, they receive about 1,795,310 won, which is the minimum wage level. Only unemployed people in their 20s and students on leave of absence are eligible to apply, and since the contract is made between the Ministry of Education and the universities, high school graduates seeking jobs are inevitably excluded.

The Small Enterprise and Market Service under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will recruit 1,500 young people to participate in the "Traditional Market Digital Jobs" project. They will visit traditional markets in their own regions to investigate operating hours, store types, customer characteristics, and find promotional content to post on social networking services (SNS) or the "Jeontong Sijang Tongtong" website.

The "Facility Safety DB Construction Project," led by the Korea Facilities Safety Corporation under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, is a telecommuting job. A total of 2,300 people will be hired nationwide, but the working period is only two months. They perform simple tasks such as entering information into the system based on manuals, including exterior inspections of facilities like dams and tunnels. The corporation is looking for universities that can participate with more than 50 people. The Ministry of Land outsources to the corporation, which in turn subcontracts to universities to create these jobs.

It also seems difficult to discover job projects themselves. Currently, the number of non-face-to-face and digital job projects integrated and announced on the Worknet website is only 22, with 13,000 jobs available. The Ministry of Employment and Labor stated that it will sequentially announce the remaining more than 100,000 jobs by next month. If recruitment announcements are made in August, the maximum working period will be about four months. It appears difficult to avoid criticism that the government rushed to create jobs without deciding what projects to undertake, resulting in a squeeze-style job creation.

Professor Sung Tae-yoon of Yonsei University said, "Rather than a long-term plan for nurturing digital talent, the projects are mainly composed of simple tasks, far from quality and stable jobs. It is hard to see that they will greatly help young people’s career development," adding, "While employment statistics themselves may improve, the actual policy effect will be limited."

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