[Editorial] Conflict over jobs

There is a growing sign of intergenerational conflict over jobs. To the embarrassment of lawmakers, a set of bills recently passed to enhance employment have added fuel to the dispute between different age groups. This situation should call our attention to the need to be more careful and considerate in addressing job-related measures and dealing with their consequences.

Since a law was revised last month to extend the retirement age to 60, social networking services have been flooded with postings revealing young people’s concerns that the move would further reduce their job opportunities.

Their worries were amplified by recent data that showed the employment rate among those in their 20s has fallen to a record low. According to figures released by Statistics Korea early this week, the rate was down by 2.3 percentage points from a year earlier to 55.8 percent in March, the lowest since 1983, when the agency began compiling relevant data.

The decline was attributed to a combination of a rise in the number of 20-somenting job-seekers and a growing number of senior citizens entering the job market, which has become increasingly tight amid a protracted economic downturn.

For their part, senior people consider the lack of available jobs the main difficulty in their lives. In a recent survey of 4,000 Seoul citizens aged 50 or older, a majority of them cited joblessness as the aspect of their lives they were most dissatisfied with.

Another employment-related law passed on April 30 has pitted 20-somethings against those in their 30s. The law designed to promote youth recruitment obliges public institutions to fill at least 3 percent of their jobs with those aged 29 or younger for three years from 2014.

It is understandable that 30-something job-seekers have criticized the measure as discriminating against them. The Internet homepage of the legislator who put forward the law was inundated with protests. The lawmaker has recently been consulting with government officials on ways to soothe the anger of people in their 30s.

In a reflection of the rapidly aging population, the proportion of senior persons who are economically active has increased more steeply than that of younger generations. According to figures from the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the rate grew from 65.7 percent in 1985 to 73 percent in 2011 among people in their 50s, compared to a meager rise from 61 percent to 62.7 percent over the same period among 20-somenthings.

Younger generations are likely to be further pushed out of the labor market, especially well-paying decent jobs, exacerbating the intergenerational conflict. What is needed under these circumstances is to refrain from drawing up measures in favor of a certain age group and facilitate discussion to collect views from different generations and coordinate their interests.

A thorough review should be made to have an accurate grasp of the effect that extending the retirement age would have on the labor market and work out appropriate policies based on it. It would make some sense to argue that the youth unemployment might be affected more by the economic downturn and the trend of growth unaccompanied by job increases than the extension of the retirement age.

Such a view was backed by a decision made by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development years ago to discard an earlier recommendation to promote early retirement from its strategy for job creation.

But it may also be that a prolonged retirement age can reduce job openings especially in nonmanufacturing and public sectors, which are favored by young educated job-seekers. This raises the need for more effective job-promoting policies including deregulating the service sector and settling the job mismatches by reducing the glut of overeducated workers and expanding support for vocational schools.

It will also be an appropriate step to draw up, as announced by Strategy and Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok this week, measures to bolster innovative start-up businesses that are expected to generate more jobs and play a role as a new growth engine for the economy.