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| President Moon Jae-in offers his comments during a meeting with senior presidential secretariats held in Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Yonhap |
By Kim Yoo-chul
President Moon Jae-in faces growing doubts over his economic policy as the job market is tightening and the real estate bubble is reaching an alarming level.
Korea's economy is not looking good. Moon is beset by growing economic challenges as his ambitious "income-driven" growth strategy has apparently failed to impress even his supporters.
According to a weekly survey by Realmeter released on Monday, Moon's approval rating reached its lowest point since his inauguration last year. It fell by 1.3 percentage points from last week to reach as low as at 56.3 percent.
"In particular, economic issues have become critical as the ongoing controversy relating to an overhaul of the national pension system and deteriorating job market data affected the President's approval rating," the firm said.
In a meeting with senior presidential secretaries a few hours after the release of the poll, the President said he was "sorry" to see signs of deterioration in employment growth.
"The government has nothing to say but to admit that policies to boost jobs haven't worked. There were industries in which the government's measures worked well and many where they didn't," President Moon said, according to Cheong Wa Dae.
President Moon asked his economic team to "do something" to revive the country's economic momentum by applying more market-friendly measures to invite more public and private investments.
"I want Cheong Wa Dae to join forces with the government's economy-related ministries and agencies to employ available policy measures to energize the slow job market," Moon said.
Korea, Asia' fourth-largest economy, added just 5,000 new jobs in July, year-on-year, which is the lowest year-on-year increase since January 2010.
The President and his economic team are being asked to drop policies focused on raising wages and improve income distribution as the policies have made little impact. The poor job growth data cut expectations among investors that the country's central bank will raise its key benchmark policy rate at its meeting later this month.
"Moon's longtime supporters still prefer to push income-driven growth strategy, but the point is the country's leading industries are being challenged. That means room is limited for conglomerates to hire more and to pay more. I believe the key question is how to find what businesses want and adopt business-friendly policies to facilitate job creation," said Han Sang-jo, head of the fixed-income investment unit at Hyundai Investments, a local asset manager in Seoul.
The government is set to release specifics about new job creation plans when it submits next year's budget bill to the National Assembly in September.
