Employment strategy

Change is needed in fundamental way of thinking

Employment is becoming an increasingly complicated social and economic issue in industrial countries, encompassing demographics, education and technological development.

The National Employment Strategy for 2020, which passed a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, reaffirms the truth that the government can’t offer a solution to this structural problem by mere compilation of miscellaneous measures.

It calls for, among other things, introducing a ``wage peak” system, in which aged workers reduce both their work hours and wages by half and give the other half to younger, jobless workers. The biggest problem with this job-sharing idea is the quality of employment will also go down to half, which will not be acceptable for the young and highly-educated.

The same can be said about the government’s virtual relaxation of rules on hiring temporary workers, allowing start-up businesses to hire the temps for more than two years without upgrading their status to regular employees. Government officials and employers might say any jobs would be better than no jobs, but labor circles are furious ― with reason ― the ostensible rise in employment rate leads to a fall in employment quality.

True, the high youth unemployment rate is inevitable to a certain extent in a country like Korea where up to 80 percent of young people go to college. There is too serious a mismatch between the supply and demand of high-end labor. But it is also the establishment, most notably the government through its education policy, which has inculcated the younger generations that only college diplomas, especially those in humanities departments, can ensure success in life.

How should one compare this unproductive educational zeal with examples of some, far more industrialized countries like Germany, where society and parents help middle-school students to decide their future career between skilled workers and college education?

Korean employers also complain about the steep wage hikes recently as well as overall wage levels which they say are relatively higher than competing countries. Unlike workers in advanced countries whose social safety net is very tight, however, wages are all there is for the Korean workers to survive.

After all, it is not the government but the businesses which can and will jack up the employment rate. So at stake is how the government encourages ― or forces if necessary ― the firms to increase the low elasticity of employment ― which indicates the number of jobs increased 1-percent growth in gross domestic product ― to industrial countries’ level.

Among the easiest ways would be to pass bills for bolder hiring tax credit, and obligate businesses to keep an ``employment quota” for young college graduates.

Most of all government officials will need to make some fundamental changes in their way of thinking. Currently, the policy-makers are letting the employers ― or capital ― do as they have done, while racking brains how to reallocate the pie among the employees ― the labor ― in a zero-sum game.

From now on, they must instead come up with ways to improve a sense of social responsibility among businesses so that both the corporate and labor can live in co-prosperity.