Yeo: "Reallocate Civil Servant Personnel Increased by Moon... New Hires Should Match Retirements"

"130,000 More Civil Servants Added During Moon Jae-in Government's 5 Years
More Than the Increase in 10 Years Under Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye Governments"

Sung Il-jong, Policy Committee Chairman of the People Power Party [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] Seong Il-jong, Chairman of the Policy Committee of the People Power Party, emphasized the economic and livelihood crisis on the 12th and urged the government to come up with measures to minimize the increase in public officials through personnel reallocation and to operate personnel efficiently.

At the party floor countermeasure meeting that day, Chairman Seong pointed out, "The number of public officials increased by 131,000 during the five years of the Moon Jae-in administration," adding, "This is more than twice the number of public officials increased during the 10 years of the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations." He also criticized, "In 2021 alone, the central government’s personnel expenses exceeded 40 trillion won, and when combined with local government officials, it approaches 110 trillion won."

He said, "The rate of change in the size of our government is significantly higher compared to countries like the UK, the US, and Japan, and the number of police officers per 1,000 people is 2.57 in Korea, which is higher than 2.19 in the US," adding, "Indiscriminate increases in personnel are becoming the main cause of national fiscal burden and administrative inefficiency."

As a solution, Chairman Seong first ordered "improving government personnel management through reallocation of public officials." He continued, "Since about 23,000 people naturally retire every year, the government should conduct new hiring only to that extent and establish a personnel management plan without additional recruitment," and demanded, "Please promptly report to the National Assembly on government-wide organizational diagnosis and government personnel efficiency measures such as the integrated utilization quota system."

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