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| Second Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-dae speaks during a press conference on reform measures of public organizations at Government Complex Seoul in central Seoul, Monday. Yonhap |
By Yi Whan-woo
The government announced on Monday that it will slash 17,230 jobs or 3.9 percent of all positions at 350 state-run organizations by 2025 to streamline their structure and implement President Yoon Suk-yeol's fiscal belt-tightening policies.
The government will also reassign 4,788 workers or 1.1 percent of the employees at public organizations with new duties over the cited period.
This will be the first time in 14 years that jobs at state-run organizations will be reduced, especially after more than 100,000 jobs there were added over the past five years under the previous Moon Jae-in administration.
Such a big addition of jobs was intended to spur economic growth. But the public organizations, including 36 state-run enterprises, were instead held responsible for hampering the country's path to recovery as many of them were heavily indebted while making little progress in tackling inefficient and lax management.
The Yoon administration correspondingly has been pushing to overhaul the function, management structure, expenditure, assets and welfare benefits of state-run organizations.
The total number of jobs in the public sector is anticipated to fall from the current 449,000 to 438,000 next year.
"The government is anticipating to cut up to 760 billion won ($591 million) in costs annually by restructuring the personnel management," the Ministry of Economy and Finance said.
The ministry said the measure will not affect current employees and added that the reduction will be based on those slated for retirement instead of lay-offs.
It also said it will try to minimize any negative impact on new recruitment drives.
The overhaul measures will also include adjustments in overlapping roles between public and private entities, and also between state-run and provincial entities, the merger of divisions within the same organizations and closures of branch offices abroad.
Of the targeted 36 state-run companies, Korea Coal Corp. will undergo the most extreme reforms with 21.2 percent of its jobs subject to the aforementioned measures.
Some 11.7 percent of jobs at Korea Racing Authority, which manages horse racing, will be subject to reforms too, while 2.2 percent of jobs at Korea Railroad Corp. and 2.1 percent at Korea Electric Power Corp. will be overhauled.
Meanwhile, no safety-related jobs will be reduced across the 350 public organizations. At Korea Electrical Safety Corp., Korea Elevator Safety Agency and Korea Railroad Corp., a total of 646 current workers will be newly assigned to safety management positions within their respective workplaces.
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