The Cabinet has decided to raise President Park Geun-hye’s annual salary by more than 3 percent and expand the merit-based wage system in the public sector, the Ministry of Personnel Management announced Tuesday. Park is set to earn 212 million won ($179,000) this year, compared to 205 million won last year, after the Cabinet approved the bill on government employees’ salaries in the meeting held in the morning.Given that the nation’s average consumer price inflation stood at 0.7 percent last ye

Koreans pointed to political feuds as the biggest reason for deteriorating social conflicts in the country, a state-led survey showed Tuesday. According to the poll by the Presidential Committee for National Cohesion, 51.8 percent of the respondents said that the political wrangling between the ruling party and opposition bloc contributed most to worsening social confrontations. In the multiple-choice survey of 2,000 Koreans aged 19 and over, the wealth gap was chosen as the second-biggest facto

Hong Yoon-sik, a former vice minister at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, has been named interior minister.Hong, 59, is known as a veteran in state affairs, having served various key posts during his 30-year career in the prime minister’s office. Born in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, the nominee received his bachelor’s degree in law from Seoul National University and master’s degree in policy from the University of Michigan in the U.S. He passed the state civil service exam in 1985

The South Korean government Monday mapped out a plan to expand its part-time work scheme in the public sector by 2018, which would increase the public workforce by more than 1 percent. Under the plan, it will offer government-backed part-time jobs for women in a bid to help them return to work after childbirth and boost the country’s low birthrate. The Ministry of Employment and Labor, along with relevant ministries, announced these and other plans in a meeting.Unlike part-time jobs generated by

A South Korean church group on Thursday indicated their willingness to show more tolerance of homosexuality, seen as the first such move of a major Protestant organization in the country. “Korean society and churches have been treating homosexuality with hatred, but we will now open a forum to discuss the issue and reflect (on our views),” the National Council of Churches in Korea said in a press conference.The group plans to hold debate sessions on the issue and hear testimonies from the lesbia

By Ock Hyun-ju South Korea’s second-largest umbrella labor union held a partial strike nationwide Wednesday in protest of the government’s push for labor market reform.The third partial strike of the year by the Korea Confederation of Trade Unions was staged for two to four hours in the afternoon in 12 cities ahead of the third antigovernment rally scheduled for this weekend.The KCTU, which encompasses 2,043 unions and more than 691,000 members from sectors including construction, public transpo

South Korean men spend the least amount of time on housework among 29 surveyed members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, highlighting the persistent gender imbalance in household responsibilities.According to the work-life balance index published Monday by Statistics Korea and Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, South Korean men spent an average of 45 minutes a day on household chores, less than a third of the OECD average of 139 minutes. South Korea was the only

Amid mounting tensions ahead of the upcoming Dec. 5 antigovernment rally, the police renewed its determination to take heavy-handed measures against “violent” demonstrators, as their stepped-up warning continued to prompt a public backlash. The police announced a new plan on Monday in a press statement to prevent what it labeled illegal and violent protests. It said it would spray paint into the crowd at the upcoming rallies to better distinguish protestors committing violence and arrest them on