![An unemployed man who came to apply for job-seeking benefits is inquiring the stock market price on his smartphone while waiting for his turn at the Western Employment and Labor Administration in Seoul on the 10th. The number of unemployed persons in January recorded 1.57 million, the highest since 1999 when statistics were written. [김호영 기자]](https://i0.wp.com/file.mk.co.kr/meet/neds/2021/02/image_readtop_2021_140005_16129519794538470.jpg?w=560&ssl=1)
An unemployed man who came to apply for job-seeking benefits is inquiring the stock market price on his smartphone while waiting for his turn at the Western Employment and Labor Administration in Seoul on the 10th. The number of unemployed persons in January recorded 1.57 million, the highest since 1999 when statistics were written. [김호영 기자]Kim Mo (25, Nam-gu, Ulsan), a student on a leave of absence from college, has been looking for a part-time job since December last year, but has not yet found a suitable place. This is because most of the places with high demand for part-time jobs, such as cafes and PC cafes, are not currently recruiting workers due to the strengthening of distance. Then, he applied for a public job held by the city hall last month and is waiting for the results of the current screening. In the application for participation, the desired tasks were listed in the first to third priority. The first priority was garbage collection, the second priority office assistance, and the third priority was the maintenance of public facilities. They also indicated that they agreed to the item asking whether to’agree’ if they were assigned to a job they did not want.
Mr. Kim said, “Last year’s Hope Job Project could only be done by applying, but this year’s public work position is not easy to find.” There are a lot of kids,” he said. Recently, 4,883 people applied for the public work (first phase) recruited by Ulsan City, recording an 11-1 competition rate. It’s significantly higher than last year’s 7-1. Of these, 306 people in their twenties, more than three times higher than 87 in the same period last year.
According to local governments across the country on the 10th, public jobs have been expanded as a countermeasure for the economic downturn, but as the number of applicants has increased rapidly, public jobs are also experiencing a’shortage phenomenon’. Far from getting a job, 20s who couldn’t even find a part-time job are flocking to public jobs, competing for jobs with their 50s and 60s. The total number of public jobs recruited by local governments this year is 63,144 (excluding Jeonbuk). Public jobs include public work performed by local governments, local community jobs and local quarantine jobs supported by the Ministry of Public Administration and Security. Most of them are simple tasks such as picking up garbage, maintenance of public facilities, quarantine, and office assistance.
Daegu City, which has recently attracted the largest number of applicants for public work projects, has decided to hire all 3,000 people for public work this year in the primary public work project. The number of applicants for the first public work in Daegu this year was 13,229, three times that of 4144 last year. It was the largest since Daegu City implemented its own public work project in 2005. Initially, the city of Daegu planned to hire 3,000 public workers three times this year. However, as a result of receiving the first application, applicants who exceeded expectations were crowded, and the job situation was considered much more serious, so we hired the target staff this year. An official from Daegu City said, “The employment crisis caused by the corona has become a serious problem for the low-income class,” and said, “We are preparing additional resources to further expand public jobs.”
Seoul also provides 8937 public jobs in the first half of the year, including 6378 public work (safe jobs), 1726 local quarantine jobs, and 833 local community jobs. 70% of public work jobs that provide preferential opportunities to participate in the underprivileged, such as the long-term unemployed, the elderly and the disabled, are hired early in the first half. Initially, the plan for the first half of the year was to hire 4378 people, 50% of the total public working jobs, but the employment situation deteriorated and 2,000 additional jobs were prepared. Of the total, KRW 59 billion (58%) is expected to be invested in the first half of the total.
Local quarantine jobs created by Corona 19 are picking stars from the sky. This job is a temporary job in which government offices, etc. conduct fever inspections and manage access, but the competition rate is fierce. For quarantine jobs in Namdong-gu, Incheon, 999 people applied for 60 people, and the competition rate reached 16:1. The quarantine job in Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, also showed an 11-to-1 competition rate with 780 applied to recruit 70 people.
Ulsan Nam-gu also recruited 83 people, and 805 people applied. An official in Nam-gu, Ulsan said, “The most people in their 50s and 60s applied for 481 people, but 95 people in their 20s applied,” he said.
Gwangju Metropolitan City also recently recruited 6412 people to the public job program in the first half of the year. Since 678 people were selected, the competition rate was close to 10:1. In this case, the head of the Innovation Growth Research Department at Ulsan Research Institute said, “The crowding of people at public jobs means that the private sector jobs are poor.”
[서대현 기자 / 최현재 기자]
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