President Moon Facing Pressure Over High Unemployment in South Korea

Well President Moon is the person that said that people need to shake off the “stereotype that the private sector creates jobs.”  This is what that belief leads to:

The government spent more than W50 trillion in 2017 and this year on its futile attempts to create jobs (US$1=W1,119). A lawmaker who is among candidates to become head of the ruling party blames the high unemployment on the W22 trillion the Lee Myung-bak administration spent a decade ago to dredge the four major rivers and waterways in the country. But the Moon Jae-in administration has spent twice as much money and only 5,000 jobs were created in July. In the past, when the government did not spend a single penny on job creation, jobs increased by around 300,000. Unemployment now stands above 1 million for the seventh straight month, while a record 1 million small businesses are expected to close this year.

W50 trillion is an astronomical amount of money. Not many countries have a total budget that size. After spending that much, the government needs to show some results, but there has been no progress whatsoever. So where has the money gone?

A closer look at the government’s job-stimulus objectives this year gives a vague idea. The government is paying W6 trillion to support the unemployed, while another W4 trillion is going into measures aimed at prodding the jobless to find work. That means around half of this year’s budget earmarked for job creation has in fact gone into supporting the unemployed and forcing companies to keep workers they do not need. And the W2 trillion allocated for job training is focused on short-term positions.

In fact, most of the jobs the government claims to have created have been short-term positions. About half of jobs it created last year by spending W11 trillion from the supplementary budget were for senior citizens, although the government said it aimed to boost youth employment. And those jobs will vanish as soon as government funding dries up. A study by the Labor Ministry shows that six out of 10 workers who found jobs through government programs quit in less than a year. Taxpayers’ money effectively turned into salaries for the jobless.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but you have to love how the Korean left is trying to blame former President Lee Myung-bak for high unemployment when he has been out of office for nearly seven years.