‘Iron Rice Bucket’ civil servant jobs… 328 trillion won in Narat money is expected if all ‘174,000 pledges’ are selected

Input 2021.01.18 06:00

[공무원 과잉시대]
The Cultural Government, which has increased 90,000 public servants over 3 years, plans to select 84,000 more
野 “One public employee spends 1.7 billion won for 30 years…174,000 people is 328 trillion won”
Civil servant wages, private workers doubled… 7 times the share of long-term service
“Increase of public officials with preferential treatment such as retirement guarantee, expansion of inequality and unfairness”

Moon Jae-in’s government, which has increased its number of public servants by 90,000 over the past three years, plans to recruit 84,000 more by 2022. This is to keep President Moon Jae-in’s presidential election pledge to elect 174,000 public officials. The number of public servants actually hired may be greater than the pledge due to the current government policy to deal with the hiring turmoil caused by the increase in the minimum wage and the like by recruiting public officials and public institutions.

Public servants who receive salary from national taxes work longer than workers in private companies, and their salary levels are higher than the average for workers. It is a structure in which a high-wage public servant is fed by a few low-wage workers. This is why criticism comes out of the Moon Jae-in administration, who said that it will select more than twice the number of public servants (87,6991) that the government has increased over the past 20 years for five years in office, saying that it is making people’s pockets destitute.

The opposition party estimates that there will be a financial burden of about 328 trillion won over 30 years due to the 174,000 public officials who will increase due to the Moon Jae-in government’s pledge. It is said that the burden of public servants’ labor costs may increase the tax burden on the people, or projects to support the vulnerable may be under pressure to reduce the budget.

◇ One public official, at least 1.7 billion won in 30 years… “Indiscreet reinforcement, be cautious”

According to the Ministry of Human Resources Development on the 18th, as of the end of April 2020, the average monthly pretax income of all public officials was 5.37 million won, up 90,000 won (1.7%) from 2019 (5.3 million won). This means that the average salary level of public officials nationwide last year was similar to that of workers with an annual salary of 65 million won.

This amount is a standard for calculating accident compensation benefits for public officials and their survivors who are injured while performing public affairs, and is calculated by applying a wage increase rate to the total remuneration of public officials plus salary, performance bonus, annual compensation, and allowance. Since it is the basis for calculating the amount of payment that the government should be responsible for, it is highly likely that it was estimated to be less than the actual salary.

In fact, the Taxpayers Federation criticized the government as “a reduced estimated amount calculated by excluding overtime pay and performance bonuses for some positions.” In 2017, the Taxpayers Federation announced that “the real average annual salary of public officials is 88.3 million won, which is the top 7% of all workers”. It is the level of real salary including welfare expenses such as welfare cards in addition to the monthly standard income for public officials announced by the government. Accordingly, it is estimated that the cost of maintaining one public employee will exceed 100 million won per year when the government contribution to the public employee pension is included.

The increase in the number of public servants paid by the government inevitably leads to tax burdens on the people. People’s Strength According to the estimates of the office of Assemblyman Gyeong-ho Chu, the government’s labor cost burden for the next 30 years will reach 327,784.7 billion won due to the pledge to recruit 174,000 public officials. This means that about 11 trillion won in national tax per year is spent on public officials selected by the Moon Jae-in administration. Civil servants with class 9 first-class salary receive about 2 million won as their first salary, but if they stay for 30 years, they receive about 1.73 billion won from the government as a salary.

Rep. Gyeong-ho Chu said, “If one public official is selected, it will cost at least 1.7 billion to 1.8 billion won until retirement and retirement for an average of 30 years.” “You have to approach it carefully as much as you weight it.”

◇ Average wages of public officials compared to the private sector… Sweden 96% vs Korea 175%

It is a’good quality job’ that all public servants who are maintained by national taxes are envy. In fact, the salary of public servants is about twice the income of wage-earning workers. According to the’Income Results by Wage and Work Jobs in 2018′ released by the National Statistical Office last year, the average monthly income of wage workers in 2018 was 2.97 million won. On the other hand, the standard monthly income of public officials in 2018 was 5.22 million won, which was 1.8 times the average of all wage workers.

The monthly income of public servants increased to 5.3 million won in 2019 and 5.39 million won last year, and has continued to increase for 10 consecutive years. Since 2011 (3.95 million won), the income of civil servants has increased by nearly 40% over the past 10 years.

For this reason, it is pointed out that public officials in Korea are receiving higher wages compared to other countries. According to the Taxpayers Federation, the average wage for public servants in Sweden in 2018 was 4.45 million won (in Korean won), which is 96% of the average worker (4.7 million won). Accordingly, the Taxpayers Federation argued that “with the labor cost of 1.2 million Korean public officials, it is possible to employ 2.4 million public officials in Sweden.”

Public servants who receive twice as much wages as the average of all workers are guaranteed to be retired at the age of 60, so they are also benefiting from long service. According to Statistics Korea’s ‘2018 Public Sector Job Statistics’, the share of jobs in the public sector where the same worker has been working for two or more years is 89% in the public sector, while only 71% in the private sector. The proportion of job owners changing due to turnover or retirement is close to 30% in the private sector, while only 10% in the public sector. It is confirmed that the public sector, such as public servants, is a’iron rice bowl job’ that does not go out once it enters.

Moreover, in the public sector, 23.9% of the workers have been working for more than 20 years. 22.9% of those who have served less than 10-20 years were also. On the other hand, only 3.4% of private companies had 20 years of service. The share of those who have worked for more than 20 years was 7 times higher in the public sector than in private companies. Nearly half of 10 public sector workers worked for 10 years or more.

Kim Seon-jeong, chairman of the Taxpayer Association, said, “It is wrong to increase the number of public servants and become regular workers in the public sector, which are being carried out with preferential benefits in the public sector such as retirement guarantees.”

◇ “The cost of increasing public officials will be passed on to the public…Expanding discrimination and unfairness”

Because of this, there are concerns that the number of public servants hired by the Moon Jae-in government, which has increased rapidly after the inauguration of the government, could increase the burden of the public due to the rapidly increasing national debt. According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, this year’s national debt is estimated to increase to 945 trillion won, 105 trillion won more than last year, and it is estimated to exceed 1070 trillion won by 2022. National debt from 660 trillion won in 2017, the first year of the current administration’s inauguration, is expected to increase by over 400 trillion won in five years, and the labor cost of public servants can make this debt increase even steeper.

Experts are negative about the government’s initiative to mitigate the impact of the employment crisis through jobs in the public sector such as public servants. So-young Kim, professor of economics at Seoul National University, said, “To overcome the corona, it is an urgent task to support the expansion of employment of private companies so that talented individuals with creative thinking skills can increase overall economic productivity.” “It could temporarily compensate for the sluggish employment index, but it could reduce the efficiency of the economy as a whole.”

Chairman Kim Seon-won also said, “The current public sector-centered job policy will widen the wage gap between regular and private non-regular workers in the public sector, which can intensify discrimination and unfair controversy.”