[Reporter’s Notebook] To Revitalize Hiring...

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Dae-yeol] I am not sure if the president has enough time to diligently monitor the newly created job status board under the current administration every day. The original goal was probably to comprehensively review overall indicators such as employment rate and unemployment rate, as well as job quality factors like wage gaps and the proportion of non-regular workers, but no matter how much the head of administration personally oversees it, the frustration felt on the ground is only increasing.

Corporate representatives consistently say that they are not in a position to hastily increase hiring because the political sphere and government have become a one team, flooding the business environment with pressuring systems and policies. The power of policies and systems remains strong in corporate management. On top of this, the attitude shown by the administration directly and indirectly influences the situation.

According to a survey by the Korea Economic Research Institute, nearly two-thirds of the top 500 companies by sales have no plans for new hires or have not yet finalized their plans. While this is largely due to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 continuing since last year, policy uncertainty also plays a role. Reasons for canceling or not deciding on hiring plans include economic sluggishness followed by rigid employment, difficulty securing suitable talent for necessary positions, and increased labor costs due to minimum wage hikes. This indicates that job market stagnation is closely intertwined with policy directions. The government outwardly says “jobs must be increased,” but companies responsible for actually increasing jobs are left discouraged, making mismatches inevitable.

The business environment is rapidly changing, emphasizing the Fourth Industrial Revolution and presenting ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) as a key issue. In fact, these changes have not just recently emerged. The closest example is the late 1990s foreign exchange crisis, and before that, since the modern era, as industrial society progressed in earnest, various changes large and small have always accompanied the corporate management environment. If companies and businesspeople are at the center of change, the role of policies and systems should be to provide the means to actively respond to that change. It is now a time when the government needs to consider what is truly necessary to encourage and uplift businesspeople’s spirits.

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