Analysis of the 2025 Budget for the Employment of Vulnerable Groups

Abstract

In this article, I examine the government’s employment support initiative for 2025, one of the top 20 national agenda projects that aims to help socially disadvantaged groups improve their economic situation by providing job opportunities. The project seeks to increase work incentives for participants in self-reliance programs and relax support eligibility criteria for employers that extend employment for older workers or hire seniors. The 3-in-one fill-unfilled-jobs package, introduced this year, is designed to expand work experience opportunities for young Koreans so as to enable them to enter the job market smoothly. These policy efforts are positive, to some extent, in terms of their effectiveness, as the subsidy jobs created can help disadvantaged individuals, who might otherwise struggle to secure decent employment in the private sector, find and retain work. However, despite the impact this subsidy jobs project may have in raising employment rates among disadvantaged groups, the quality of such jobs, typically low-paid, is a concern that can no longer be ignored. For example, it is unlikely that the youth employment support project, implemented with a focus on involving small- and middle-sized firms, to succeed unless accompanied by improvements in these firms, in their working conditions and in public perceptions of them. In addition, ensuring that socially disadvantaged individuals enter the labor market and retain work would require greater government support for the organizations and workforce that administer these support programs.