Tag: unemployment

Trade Dispute Leading to Decrease in Hiring of Koreans In Japan

Here is another area impacted by the current trade dispute between Korea and Japan, the hiring of South Koreans in Japan:

Job seekers browse recruitment advertisements during the Japan Job Fair in Seoul in November 2018. | REUTERS

Song Min-su, a Japanese major in his final year at Hannam University, south of Seoul, has watched in dismay as a dispute between South Korea and Japan over wartime forced labor has spiraled into a damaging political and economic row.

Song, 25, has been pursuing his dream of working in Japan. With historic labor shortages in Japan, he had been confident he would avoid the tough job search many of his peers faced at home in South Korea, where youth unemployment is growing.

But curbs in Japan on the exports of high-tech materials to South Korea have escalated a bitter diplomatic feud between the neighbors, sparking boycotts that have hit the sales of Japanese cars, beer and other goods in South Korea, as well as travel to Japan.

“It will not only get harder to find a job in Japan, but the current sentiment will also make things more difficult to find a job in Korea with the use of my Japanese major,” Song said.

South Korea’s relations with former colonial ruler Japan have long been testy, with Tokyo having cited a dispute over court rulings related to forced wartime labor during World War II as a factor that led to tighter export controls implemented in July.

South Korea responded by stripping Japan of favored trading nation status and scrapping an intelligence-sharing pact.

The dispute has derailed a surge in the hiring of highly educated South Korean graduates by Japanese companies in recent years, forcing job seekers, employment consultants and the Seoul government to rethink Japan as a place to work. (………..)

With unemployment at a 26-year-low, Japan was the most popular overseas place to work for Koreans in 2014 and 2016-2018, figures from Human Resources Development Service of Korea show. Japan was the destination for nearly one-third of 5,783 South Korean graduates who found jobs overseas last year under government programs, more than triple the number seen in 2013.

But last month, the Labor Ministry canceled a job fair focused on Japan and Southeast Asia for late September that would have been the largest organized by the government, blaming the strained ties.

Another job expo held by the Korea-Japan Cooperation Foundation for Industry and Technology in mid-July, also with a focus on jobs in Japan, received 20 percent fewer participants than its previous fairs, an official said.

South Korea’s Labor Ministry is planning the second of its biannual global job fairs in November, but instead of focusing on jobs in Japan, as it did last year, it plans to broaden the list of countries.

Japan Times

You can read more at the link, but with already high youth unemployment in South Korea, it seems like the Korean government would rather have people unemployed than working in Japan.

Korean Jobless Rate Hits a 19 Year High

Something to keep in mind that these jobless numbers have probably been modified as much as possible to make it not look as bad since President Moon fired the prior head of Statistics Korea and replaced her with an ally. The actual jobless is probably far worse:

Over 1.24 million people remained jobless in April, the highest in 19 years, a clear indication of the tightening job market amid an economic slowdown here, government data showed Wednesday. 

Statistics Korea said the number of jobless stood at 1,245,000, up 84,000 from a year earlier and the highest number since June 1999 when the agency began compiling related data. 

The jobless rate also jumped to 4.4 percent in April, up 0.3 percentage points year-on-year, the highest since 2000 when it stood at 4.5 percent. 

The rate for those aged between 15 and 29 reached 11.5 percent, up 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier, also the highest since April 2000. 

You can read more at the link.

President Moon Facing Pressure Over High Unemployment in South Korea

Well President Moon is the person that said that people need to shake off the “stereotype that the private sector creates jobs.”  This is what that belief leads to:

The government spent more than W50 trillion in 2017 and this year on its futile attempts to create jobs (US$1=W1,119). A lawmaker who is among candidates to become head of the ruling party blames the high unemployment on the W22 trillion the Lee Myung-bak administration spent a decade ago to dredge the four major rivers and waterways in the country. But the Moon Jae-in administration has spent twice as much money and only 5,000 jobs were created in July. In the past, when the government did not spend a single penny on job creation, jobs increased by around 300,000. Unemployment now stands above 1 million for the seventh straight month, while a record 1 million small businesses are expected to close this year.

W50 trillion is an astronomical amount of money. Not many countries have a total budget that size. After spending that much, the government needs to show some results, but there has been no progress whatsoever. So where has the money gone?

A closer look at the government’s job-stimulus objectives this year gives a vague idea. The government is paying W6 trillion to support the unemployed, while another W4 trillion is going into measures aimed at prodding the jobless to find work. That means around half of this year’s budget earmarked for job creation has in fact gone into supporting the unemployed and forcing companies to keep workers they do not need. And the W2 trillion allocated for job training is focused on short-term positions.

In fact, most of the jobs the government claims to have created have been short-term positions. About half of jobs it created last year by spending W11 trillion from the supplementary budget were for senior citizens, although the government said it aimed to boost youth employment. And those jobs will vanish as soon as government funding dries up. A study by the Labor Ministry shows that six out of 10 workers who found jobs through government programs quit in less than a year. Taxpayers’ money effectively turned into salaries for the jobless.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but you have to love how the Korean left is trying to blame former President Lee Myung-bak for high unemployment when he has been out of office for nearly seven years.

Young Koreans Continue to Face High Unemployment

The unemployment and under-employment of young people in South Korea continues to get worse, but I have to wonder how much this has to do with jobs that younng Koreans will no longer do:

The number of young people out of work has reached a record high in the first half of this year.

Statistics Korea said on Sunday that 410-thousand people in their 20s were unemployed in the January-June period, which is the largest first-half figure since 2000 when the nation began to compile related data.

The number of unemployed young people, which posted 308-thousand in 2013 and 380-thousand last year, surpassed the 400-thousand mark this year.

Analysts attribute the rise to the sluggish economy and aftereffects of increased employment last year.

Statistics Korea said that one out of three people aged between 15 and 29 are hired for temporary or part-time posts as their first jobs.  [KBS World Radio]

Congress Looks To Act On The Unemployment Rate of Young Veterans

Here we go again with the unemployment rate of young veterans in the United States:

Democrats and Republicans rarely agree on anything in the nation’s capital, but there’s a growing bipartisan sense on Capitol Hill that the private sector will have to do much more to help Congress ease chronically high unemployment among veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In August, President Barack Obama called on the nation’s businesses to hire or train 100,000 unemployed veterans by the end of 2013, a challenge that Microsoft answered with a pledge to train 10,000 of them.
Now, as part of his $447 billion jobs package, Obama wants Congress to approve a plan that would provide businesses a tax credit of $2,400 to $9,600 for each veteran they hire, depending on whether they’re disabled and how long they’ve been unemployed.
One million veterans already are unemployed and more than a million are expected to leave the military by 2016. Julius Clemente, a 33-year-old Iraq veteran from Kirkland, Wash., told a congressional panel Thursday that there will be “systematic chaos” if more of them can’t find jobs or get help going to college. [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I find it amazing when a veteran says they need help going to college. The Army has so many programs in place most notably the very generous GI Bill that help veterans do just that.
I have said this before, employers have to hire people that meet the skill set that they need and veterans need to make themselves competitive with other applicants before getting out of the military. That is why I have always advocated for Soldiers to take college classes while serving. The Army has gone to great length to make college classes available to its Soldiers. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan you can see Soldiers attending classes. So if someone exits the service without at least an Associates Degree, that is their own fault. Additionally if they don’t use their GI Bill benefits after they get out to get a degree in something employable than that is there own fault as well. I have seen this to often as well that someone gets a degree in liberal arts or underwater basketweaving and they can’t understand why they can’t find a job.
The second issue I see with Soldiers exiting the service is that they often go back to their home towns even though that may not be the best place for them to find a job. Many of the skill sets learned by Soldiers are more in demand in areas around military bases. Military bases hire many contractors with the vast majority of the contractors being prior service military. Depending on one’s education level and time in service a government position working for the military may even be possible. Then you add in the fact that many private defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon also have offices located around military bases that also hire many prior service military members. Soldiers going back to their hometown after completing military service cuts off these job opportunities for them. At the same time while in the military servicemembers need to network with people that can help them land one of these jobs. Who you know can be just as important as what you know.
In my opinion veterans should not feel entitled to a high paying job after they leave the service, they need to make themselves competitive applicants which military service should be something to enhance their resume over other applicants and not be the only thing on it.