S. Korea set to increase employment in public sector

SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will try to create 34,000 jobs in the public sector this year as part of efforts to tackle the nation's sluggish employment situation, officials said Sunday.

To that end, the finance ministry will increase spending on infrastructure
projects to 500 billion won (US$429 million) from 300 billion won and encourage
government agencies and public corporations to hire more employees.
State-invested corporations will thus increase their investments for this year to
5 trillion won from an earlier goal of 4.6 trillion won, the ministry said.
The nation's job growth has remained in the doldrums amid a slump in the domestic
economy and signs of exports losing steam.
According to the National Statistical Office, 159,000 new jobs were created in
August, far lower than the government's target of 200,0000, as companies were
reluctant to hire new workers due to growing business uncertainty.
South Korea's jobless rate stood at 3.1 percent in August, unchanged from the
previous month, the office said.
The South Korean economy, Asia's fourth-largest, is widely forecast to grow in
the upper 4-percent range this year, much lower than the new government's initial
target of 6 percent.
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