Full of economic wisdom

Dear editor,

A Dec. 17 editorial, “More leisure, less work,” is full of economic wisdom confirming the well-established backward sloping supply curve of labor in the literature of economics.

This means that the workaholic Koreans need to work less and play more which is the need of the day as the most suitable strategy for human resource management and traditionally labor economics.

It is interesting to note that the yearly average working hours are highest at 2,255 in South Korea.

To tackle the jobless growth and improve quality of life, we certainly need to take measures such as reducing working hours anywhere in the world as a component of employment policy.

The expenditure on leisure and cultural activities as 8.74 percent of the total household spending confirms the Keynesian psychological law of consumption.

In my opinion, work is a natural thing and one can get the opportunity to do work in a natural course as and when the time comes.

As a teacher at the Graduate School of International & Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, I have observed that everybody is busy for the sake of saying so without any break up in the time schedule of 24 hours which are at the disposal of one and all. Nobody has more than 24 hours in a day.

To my mind one should not pose busy for the sake of avoiding others who need time to spend with others. The relationship management calls for good investment in time spent with relatives and friends for which Korea has a complete two-day weekend which needs to be studied by a researcher to find out how the time is being utilized and wasted.

To achieve anything, we need to learn time management by treating time as wealth. We need to learn to live life excellently without wasting time on irrelevant issues.

We need to be systematic, disciplined like an awakened soldier of an army who never forgets to do his duty under any circumstances. The practice reminds him at a proper time to do the work that needs to be done.

M.M. Goel Professor of Indian economy Seoul mmgoel2001@yahoo.co.in.