The new Moon Jae-in administration will take charge of revamping social safety and labor systems in its five-year term, with a focus on boosting anti-disaster measures and better treatment of temporary workers, its de facto transition team said Wednesday.
Such plans are part of the 100 policy tasks put forward by the State Affairs Planning Advisory Committee, which has worked for the past two months drawing up detailed plans to help set the course of the new administration based on Moon's election pledges. He assumed office May 10.
It has proposed 32 policy tasks for the social sector, with ways to carry them out under the objective of building "a state that takes responsibility for the lives of its own people."
Anti-disaster measures put weight on the reinforcement of the national disaster management system, by first establishing an integrated control tower equipped to take swift and timely actions during emergencies.
It will aim to enable all available state organs in central and provincial areas -- police, firefighters and the Coast Guard -- to be assigned to the right duties at the right time.
There have been strong calls for more systematic counter-disaster protocols in South Korea in the wake of a tragic ferry sinking in 2014 that killed more than 300 people aboard. A lack of shrewd moves during the rescue is cited as a major failure of the previous government led by ousted President Park Geun-hye.
To that end, the country will be able to brace for and respond to any national catastrophe, and minimize negative repercussions, the committee said in the report.
The government will also step up efforts to improve working conditions for temporary workers by lifting discriminative practices that are cited as a factor that hinders growth. The labor ministry is expected to provide legal grounds for irregular workers to be entitled to severance pay and other insurance benefits.
It is also tasked with upping the legal threshold for the minimum hourly wage to 10,000 won ($8.89) by 2020, one of its biggest challenges amid strong objection from businesses. The rate was raised by a whopping 17 percent to 7,530 won for next year, only this week, after long drawn-out negotiations.
The moves are in line with the president's key policy drive to create "quality jobs" to quench the country's high jobless rate, especially among the youth, which recorded 10.1 percent in June.
On the environmental aspect, the committee called for a reform in the energy policy and efforts against increasing fine dust. As was in Moon's election pledges, it laid out a blueprint for a phased termination of nuclear power. The government has suspended the construction of two new nuclear power plants and decided not to renew old reactors.
The policy tasks also include steps to bolster financial support and build more infrastructure for the elderly with Alzheimer's. The country has seen a fast growing number of people diagnosed with the degenerative disease, while treatment facilities and state benefits are insufficient. (Yonhap)