Wasted tax money

The Roh Moo-hyun administration said it plans to hire more than 50,000 new civil servants in five years. But this government has already hired more than 50,000 workers since 2003, increasing the total number to 930,000. No previous administration has hired as many civil servants as the Roh administration has done, or plans to do. However, the government said 12,000 of the new civil servants will be hired this year and the plan for the additional hires will be announced before Roh’s term ends.
It is regrettable that the government is only trying to think of easy ways to keep permanent jobs while the private sector is weeding out workers to cut costs.
The government explains that it needs more workers to become efficient. That doesn’t make sense.
According to last year’s report from the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development, Korea’s national competitiveness ranking dropped by a large amount.
Still, the government is only interested in enlarging its body. The government must think its people are mere taxpayers to feed the increasing number of civil servants.
Even considering that more people are needed in the education and social sectors, that still makes only 58 percent of the new workforce necessary.
In Ulsan, some officials were using the worktime to study. Some took naps in lounges, while some workers were caught working only four days in a month during the last three years. The Ulsan government said they weeded out those officials and made them do chores, which helped the group become more energetic and competitive.
The Roh administration likes to staple things in place. Since there are more regulations the government wants to promulgate, it will need more civil servants to maintain them and make sure people follow the rules.
What other country in the world declares that it wants to create a bigger government?
Every developed nation has a stated goal of making their governments smaller and therefore more efficient.
A smaller government is necessary to cut down on unneccessary regulations, which boosts the private sector and thus raises national competitiveness.
The Korean economy is in bad shape and taxes are snowballing. Now the government is saying it wants to hire more civil servants.
This is a depressing country.