Controversy Over 'Job Supplementary Budget'... Lee Jae-gap Says "We Will Increase Support for Youth Digital Jobs"

On the 3rd, announced creation of 110,000 youth digital jobs this year with a budget increase of 561.1 billion KRW
On the 24th, visited IT company i2max and pledged "strengthened support"

Minister Lee Jae-gap of the Ministry of Employment and Labor announcing measures to revitalize youth employment on the 3rd at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] As the National Assembly continues to deadlock over the supplementary budget for job support until the plenary session on the 24th, the government announced that it will "further increase support for youth digital jobs." The government's job policies have faced strong criticism for providing short-term and public part-time jobs funded by taxes. Since the 'youth digital' sector is a high value-added field, there is relatively less disagreement, so the government is in a position where it must make every effort to prepare support measures.

Lee Jae-gap, Minister of Employment and Labor, visited IT company i2max at 2:30 p.m. that day and encouraged their efforts in job creation. At the event encouraging i2max, he stated, "The government has prepared and is implementing measures to revitalize youth employment as of the 3rd to recover the youth employment situation," adding, "We also plan to further expand the scale of support for the youth digital job project." Despite ongoing controversy over the 'job supplementary budget,' the Minister of Employment and Labor declared that support will be strengthened without wavering.

The 'youth digital job' project described by the Ministry of Employment and Labor is a policy that supports wages when small and medium-sized enterprises hire youth for IT positions. The core of the policy is to provide up to 1.8 million KRW per month in wages and 100,000 KRW in indirect labor costs for up to six months when youth are hired for IT jobs. Earlier on the 3rd, the Ministry announced that it would increase the number of youth digital jobs from 50,000 to 110,000, adding 6,000 jobs, and increase the related budget by 561.1 billion KRW.

Minister Lee emphasized, "I ask for much interest from companies in the field regarding youth employment so that the government's youth policy can serve as a catalyst to recover the difficult youth employment situation." He instructed policy officials to "develop institutional improvement plans to encourage more companies to participate in the project and to enable youth to participate in a wider variety of IT jobs."

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