More Jobs To Boost South Korea’s Economic Growth
A rate-setting board member at the Bank of Korea (BOK) emphasized the importance of job creation on Wednesday. Chung Hae-bang said that policymakers should also focus on bolster employment, a statement that contradicted BOK's long-term goal for further economic growth, according to an article by Yonhap News on Wednesday.
He stressed that this will "boost the quantity and quality of employment" in the country and added, "We should think more about the quantity and quality of employment going forward," he said.
CNBC reported last month that South Korea's economic growth in Q2 was only 0.3 percent, down from the 0.8 percent increase recorded in Q1.
Two of the biggest factors contributing to this were the MERS outbreak, which greatly affected tourism and consumer spending, and slow export market.
"I assume it will be very difficult to recover the high growth rates that were seen in the past due to structural factors that are affecting the economy, on top of external factors," Chung said.
A high number of 20 to 29-year old individuals without jobs during the first half of the year reached 410,000 despite ranking fourth among Asia's largest economies. It almost broke the previous record in 2000 when the total was 420,000.
Market Force Company chairman James Rooney told BBC in July, "The growth rate is worse than expected."
"We have to expect that the next quarter is also going to be negatively impacted," Rooney added.
However, he stressed that the slow economic growth was not entirely due to MERS.
"Mers' impact was really only felt by June which means that only one month of this quarter can have arguable been affected by it."
"So the Mers effect cannot fully explain that degree of drop."
Other than the disease, declining exports have affected South Korea, with this sector accounting for over half of the nation's economy but, so far, have continued to fall each month this year. One reason was the relative strength of Korean won against the failing euro and yen. In turn, it made competition on overseas export markets difficult for many companies.
