Gov't Launches Emergency Occupation Plan
23 April, 2020
The federal government on Wednesday announced a W3.4-trillion intend to create 550,000 jobs as employment shrivels as a result of coronavirus epidemic (US$1=W1,233). It is part of a W10.1 trillion emergency bundle to help businesses and workers affected by the epidemic.
Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said the program is a "bold purchase" accounting for 40 percent of the year's job-creation spending budget and designed to help 2.86 million people, 2.5 times a lot more than the 1.15 million Koreans who were unemployed this past year.
Some W500,000 per month will be given for three months to 930,000 mom-and-pop businesses and temporary personnel including freelancers whose earnings have already been severely strike by the epidemic. Another 320,000 employees who have been placed on unpaid leave will also be offered W500,000 a month for three months.
The government will also provide more emergency funds for businesses and waive their employment and other insurance fees to prevent them from laying off employees because of cash shortages. The allowance of W500,000 a month for adolescent jobseekers will be extended from six to 11 months.
But most of the jobs designed for 300,000 laid-off employees and bankrupt small enterprises overlap with momentary menial positions already designed for senior citizens, such as for example environmental and forest-fire monitors. The pay is slightly above minimum wage and they entail only 30 hours of job a week for six months.
The controversial sinecures designed for older persons pay roughly the same amount but last up to 10 months, and the majority of them have already been halted through the lockdown.
The situation is comparable for 100,000 jobs the federal government plans to create in digital administration. They involve 15 to 40 hours of work a week on a maximum six-month contract and include work like online info collection.
Some 150,000 jobs should be created giving subsidies to companies who recruit teenagers. The government gives W800,000 maximum per month for up to six months to businesses to perform internship applications and W1 million a month to small and moderate businesses that hire new staff.
It has raised concerns that the majority of the brand new jobs will be dead-end positions offering no hope of future employment.
Sung Tae-yoon at Yonsei University said, “Expanding government-supported jobs could conclude making young persons reliant in such positions since it fails to harness any skills they have to find employment in the private sector. Rather, the government should improve job-training courses for them while aiding companies create more jobs by themselves."
Source:
TAG(s):