[Economic Outlook] Last Year's Fiscal Deficit Size and January Employment Situation

Seoul Myeongdong Street (archival photo)

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] This week, the fiscal deficit scale of last year and the January employment indicators will be announced.

On the 9th, the government will announce the total revenue and total expenditure results of last year. This is the procedure to finalize the government's annual revenue and expenditure performance and close the accounting books, based on which the national settlement report is prepared and submitted to the National Assembly.

Due to the four supplementary budgets (supplementary budget) prepared in response to the COVID-19 crisis, the gap between revenue and expenditure is likely to have widened to an unprecedented level. As of November last year, the cumulative total expenditure was 501.1 trillion won, total revenue was 437.8 trillion won, resulting in an integrated fiscal deficit of 6.33 trillion won.

On the 10th of next month, Statistics Korea will release the January employment trends. In December last year, the number of employed people decreased by 628,000 compared to the previous year, marking the largest decline since February 1999 (-658,000). Since the high-level social distancing measures were maintained in January this year, it is difficult to expect an improvement in the employment situation.

On the same day, the Bank of Korea will announce the results of the 'Financial Market Trends in January' survey. Attention is focused on whether the rapid increase in household loans, which rose by a record high of 100.5 trillion won on an annual basis last year, will continue.

In December last year, household loans increased by 6.6 trillion won in one month. The increase in other loans including credit loans was 400 billion won, significantly lower than November's 7.4 trillion won. However, the increase in housing mortgage loans such as jeonse deposit loans was 6.3 trillion won, 100 billion won more than November's 6.2 trillion won. In particular, jeonse deposit loans jumped by 2.8 trillion won in one month, marking the second highest record after February last year (3.7 trillion won).

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