"Excessive Intervention in Finance"... 90% of Financial Workers View Yoon Government Policies Negatively

Survey Conducted on 1,800 Union Members
Nearly 90% Negative Evaluations Regardless of Industry
Strong Criticism of 'Excessive Intervention' and 'Short-Sighted Policies'
Over 75% Respond 'Unnecessary' to Job-Based Pay System Introduction

A survey revealed that employees of various financial companies and financial public enterprises perceive the Yoon Suk-yeol administration's financial policies as scoring only 17.5 out of 100 points. Negative evaluations approached 90% across sectors including banking, securities, insurance, and credit cards. Critics pointed out that the government is excessively intervening and implementing short-sighted financial policies.

On the 14th, the National Financial Industry Labor Union and the National Office Financial Services Labor Union announced that they conducted a survey on the current administration's financial policies targeting 1,800 union members over about a month from July 17 to August 23, yielding these results.

First, regarding the overall financial policies of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration over the past year, 89.7% evaluated them negatively. As many as 60.4% responded that they "evaluate very negatively." In particular, negative evaluations in the banking and securities industries were even higher at 93.2% and 90.6%, respectively. When converted to a 100-point scale, the score was only 17.5 points.

The top reason for negative evaluations was "excessive intervention," accounting for 43.3%. Those who answered "short-sighted financial policies and system structure" also reached 30.9%. Other reasons included "lack of a financial policy control tower (13.3%)" and "populist actions (12.5%)."

More than 70% of financial industry workers who participated in the survey viewed the roles of the two financial authorities, the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, as important. However, only about 10% responded that these authorities are performing their roles well (Financial Services Commission 12.9%, Financial Supervisory Service 12.2%). More than half of respondents answered that the authorities are "performing very poorly" (Financial Services Commission 50.9%, Financial Supervisory Service 50.1%).

Criticism was also directed at the government's intervention in personnel matters of financial companies. 62.2% of respondents acknowledged personnel intervention, and among them, 90.5% said such intervention was unnecessary. This response is interpreted as reflecting awareness of former Financial Services Commission Chairman Im Jong-ryong's appointment as chairman of Woori Financial Group and the failure of former Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byeong's reappointment.

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration's measures against securities crimes and financial consumer protection were also criticized as inadequate. Negative evaluations of "poor response" reached 88.1% for securities crime response and 86.8% for financial consumer protection measures.

Regarding the ‘job-based pay system’ proposed as a labor reform task by the government, awareness was mixed, but overall, responses indicated no need for expansion. Unlike the seniority-based pay system (yeongonggeup), where wages automatically increase with years of service, the job-based pay system calculates wages differently based on the difficulty and responsibility of each job. In this survey, 57.4% of respondents were aware of the job-based pay system. Especially among public and other related institution workers who could be directly affected, most (72.9%) were aware. However, regardless of awareness, over 75% in all industries responded that there is no need to expand it.

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