[EDITORIALS]The wrong job, done badly

The Korea Development Institute has forecast that it will be hard to create 300,000 new jobs next year. The figure is far lower than the government’s goal of 400,000 jobs. Considering changes in population and economic trends, the institute said that 250,000 is the best figure that can be expected.
The government set a target of 400,000 new jobs because it believes that this number is required to ensure employment for young people seeking jobs for the first time after finishing their education. But the target is nothing but wishful thinking.
This year, the government promised to create 400,000 jobs and then lowered its target to 350,000. As the year ends, it’s expected that the number of new jobs will actually be less than 300,000.
The government presents an optimistic target and fails to achieve it. Then it simply admits that it has failed and erases the target number so it can offer a new figure. This has become commonplace. The government has no sense of responsibility about achieving its own goals and when it fails to meet its targets, it does not even say that it is sorry.
The announcement by the Korea Development Institute includes a request that the government should not fool the people with unreasonable goals but should present feasible targets and do its best to achieve them. The institute was also skeptical about jobs in the public sector that the government included in its figures in a bid to increase the number of new jobs reported.
A senior member of the institute said jobs should be created in the market and that there are limitations to how many jobs can be created by the government because this policy has limited effect on increasing long-term employment. He’s got a point.
It is meaningless to compare the jobs that the government creates using enormous amounts of taxpayer money with the jobs that the private sector creates for the same amount of money. The latter is much better in terms of the quality and quantity of jobs.
Thus, the best possible way is for the government to help the private sector create jobs, instead of trying to do so by itself. We have suggested that option on numerous occasions. To do this the government should lift regulations on businesses.
When companies want to increase investment in order to create jobs the government ties them down with obstructive regulations. That’s why an inadequate number of jobs are being created. When the government tries to create employment it does the wrong job and doing it badly.