By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter

A group representing the country's major chaebol said Thursday they would join efforts nationwide to reinvigorate the sluggish job market by creating as many as 3 million positions. However, they faced immediate criticism that this was just a slogan-oriented announcement with no concrete actions detailed.

The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) said it has launched a ``committee to create 3 million jobs,'' headed by FKI Chairman Cho Suck-rai. The working level committee, comprised of CEOs of the country's 20 major conglomerates as well as 14 advisors, will discuss policy tasks and projects, and make suggestions to employment strategy meetings presided over by President Lee Myung-bak.

It will set up plans for the tourism industry development in order to attract 20 million tourists to the country. Developing the medical services industry and other promising growth areas is also on its agenda.

The committee will make recommendations regarding how to supply more land to businesses at cheaper prices, and come up with ways to foster small companies.

``Korea's employment rate stands at 64 percent, ranking 22nd among 30 OECD member countries. Korea should make use of its human resources by creating 3 million jobs to develop into a bigger economy,'' Cho said.

However, some say the committee is likely to end up as a campaign of simply vainglorious words.

``They are not saying that conglomerates will be creating more jobs. It's more like a national campaign that doesn't clearly define what roles they are going to play,'' said Lee Sang-dong, director at the Corea Institute for a New Society

``Conglomerates have been enjoying huge profits, but their ratio in total employment has been decreasing. I think they should take more responsibility,'' Lee said.

He suggested that chaebol show concrete efforts, such as increasing direct employment, especially for young people, or cutting work hours to hire more staff.

``If that's too burdensome, they can set up social contribution funds to support small businesses in hiring more employees, but they never mention any of this and just want a campaign,'' he said.

chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr