Despite the sluggish economy, the job market has remained surprisingly buoyant this year. According to the Bank of Korea, the economy is expected to add 430,000 jobs this year, an impressive performance that Minister of Strategy and Finance Bahk Jae-wan described as a “job bonanza.”

Yet the outsized employment gains are likely to come to a halt soon. As the economic slowdown takes hold, the job market is contracting rapidly. Research institutions paint a gloomy employment picture for next year, with some even forecasting an unemployment catastrophe.

The LG Economic Research Institute projected that job growth would plunge to 280,000 next year, a 35 percent drop from this year’s estimate, due to the slow pace of the economic recovery.

The Hyundai Research Institute forecast that the economy would add slightly more than 300,000 jobs next year. It noted that domestic companies, which have thus far refrained from workforce adjustments, would start to shrink their payrolls next year.

In a recent survey conducted by the Samsung Eeconomic Research Institute, 9.4 percent of the nation’s top 500 listed companies said they would reduce their workforce next year.

Some companies have already launched early retirement programs to cut their payrolls. They include such top-notch corporations as Hyundai Heavy Industries, POSCO and Citibank Korea.

The slowing economy is taking its heaviest toll on young people. According to data released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday, among people in their 20s, 38.4 percent were economically inactive in September, the highest figure since June 1999.

The ratio edged up partly due to an increase in the number of young people who gave up finding work to polish their resumes. This indicates tightening job market conditions for them.

As the employment outlook darkens, the government has announced a plan to expand social service jobs. In Korea, the social service sector has ample potential for job creation as the need for social care for children, the elderly and people with disabilities is growing.

Yet the problem with this plan is that the quality of the jobs to be created is not high. These jobs are mostly temporary and for people in their 50s or 60s.

The government needs to find ways to alleviate the serious unemployment problem for the youth. One way to create a large number of decent jobs in a relatively short span of time is to boost the software industry.

Software is a much better job-creation engine than such manufacturing businesses as petrochemicals, semiconductors, shipbuilding and automobiles. Furthermore, software, when applied to other industries, can enhance productivity.

The government needs to urge corporations to improve their treatment of software experts to encourage young people to take up software jobs.