By Sohn JiAe
Photos = Yonhap News

President Moon Jae-in has had a computer monitoring center installed in his office in the Yeomingwan Wing of Cheong Wa Dae on May 24 so that he can personally see how job-creation policies are being carried out throughout his term.

The monitoring center consists of two large panels that display 18 key indicators concerning the rise and drop in the number of employed, as well as jobless rates, across the employment market.

Checking the indicators, President Moon can see on a daily basis such indicators as the current employment rate, rises and falls in the number of employed people, start-ups, the wage gap, wage growth rate, irregular job openings, and working hours.

The president will also be able to keep abreast of economic indicators, such as the economic growth rate, consumer prices, rises in capital investment and in retail sales.

“With this data, I can see the job openings available at each individual company, especially conglomerates,” said the president as he was demonstrating how to read the indicators shown on the screen.

“These monitors also make firms that have a large number of irregular workers stand out. I can get the full picture with statistics released on a monthly basis as to how organizations across the public sector are transforming many irregular jobs into regular, full-time positions,” he added.

“As of April this year, the employment rate hit 66.6 percent, just two percent below the OECD average, which is not serious. However, looking deeply into the numbers, the employment rate among youth is almost 10 percent lower than the OECD average. Our youth jobless rate at home is significant. So is the rate among women, seven percent lower compared to that of the OECD."

"Both issues are important tasks that the new government should handle,” the president stressed.




“In my election campaign, I pledged that I would be the president of job creation. I am keeping that promise by installing this monitoring center to keep track of job creation, and by launching a presidential committee on employment,” the president said. “What’s important now is not that I’ve kept those promises, but that we should create good results with these,” he added, as he urged his top aides to keep working hard to achieve a good outcome.

jiae5853@korea.kr