Public firms concerned about restructuring under incoming Yoon administration

The incoming administration's finance minister nominee, Choo Kyung-ho, heads to his temporary office in central Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap

By Anna J. Park

Concerns are growing among employees of state-owned companies about their job stability, as the incoming Yoon administration is expected to pursue major restructuring of public firms under the premise of increasing efficiency.

Such concerns are based on the fact that Choo Kyung-ho, the nominee for the positions of finance minister and deputy minister for economic affairs of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, has been calling for years to overhaul and restructure public firms. When he was serving as the first vice minister of the finance ministry in 2013 in the Park Geun-hye administration, he urged public companies to undergo restructuring to eliminate “lax management” and resolve those public institutions' deficits.

According to ALIO, an information portal on public institutions, the number of employees of the country's 36 state-led companies increased to 145,047 as of the end of last year, which is a 19.5 percent jump from 2016, a year prior to when the Moon administration took office in May 2017.

During the past five years, that number has been increasing continuously, as President Moon had vowed to convert temporary contract workers to regular workers with job security until retirement as much as possible, as one of his presidential campaign pledges. The government had also been increasing the number of public jobs in the past couple of years, as the domestic employment market had been hit hard by the pandemic.

Upon being nominated as the incoming administration's finance minister, Choo urged public firms to take more responsibility in stabilizing public utility fees. He also criticized the leadership of some public companies, as some managers receive high compensation while their companies suffer deficits.

“Such state-led firms cannot just simply say that they need to increase public utility fees, while they continue their lax management behaviors,” Choo said during a press conference held earlier this month. “We will induce the directors of the institutions to lead by example.”