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Number of employed soars on base effect of pandemic
By Lee Min-hyung
Korea's job market is still far from entering a phase of robust recovery despite remarkable improvements in employment statistics. Experts say that the improvements are mainly due to a base effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, while they advised the government to help private businesses hire more people instead of relying on government spending to create temporary jobs.
According to Statistics Korea, Wednesday, the number of employed people in the country stood at 27.75 million last month, up 831,000 from a year ago. This is the largest growth in the same month since March 2002.
The statistics authority explained that the performance was driven by modest export growth and digital transformation.
"Robust exports and the rise of digital transformation in industrial sectors helped increase the number of the employed and reduce the number of jobless people," Kong Mi-sook, a director at a social statistics division of Statistics Korea, said.
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki spoke highly of the monthly job data, saying that this was the result of the government's policy efforts.
"The youth employment rate is also on a gradual rise and is setting a new high each month," Hong said. "The government's diverse policy efforts have contributed to a job recovery here."
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But economists said the latest job data is nothing more than a base effect from the nation's pandemic shock last year.
"Basically speaking, the growth in the number of the employed was driven by the base effect," Yonsei University professor Sung Tae-yoon said. "Even if a set of other factors _ such as exports _ might have had some influence in raising the figure, this is minimal. It is more accurate to say that the pandemic-induced base effect played the biggest part in driving up the number of the employed."
Other experts voiced a need for the government to focus more on creating jobs in the private sector.
"The latest data shows that society is on track to return to normal from the pandemic shock, but this does not mean that it is entering a phase of a robust job recovery," Sejong University professor Kim Dae-jong said.
"The point is that the Moon Jae-in administration has for the past five years focused on creating jobs by expanding relevant budgets. For instance, there is no point in creating temporary jobs for the elderly for sustainable job recovery here."
The incumbent government has adopted a pro-labor policy by drastically raising the minimum wage and creating more jobs for the disenfranchised, which the economist said has done little good in building a virtuous cycle in the job market.
"Creating jobs in the private sector should be the top priority for an overall job recovery, but this was not the case for the past five years," he said. "The incoming administration led by President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol has pledged to so after taking office by helping companies create more quality jobs, which is much better than simply increasing the number of the employed."
