Deep skepticism was voiced when the Economic and Social Development Commission decided in late April to negotiate ways to increase the portion of employed people ― from 64.2 percent last year to 70 percent by the end of President Park Geun-hye’s five-year governance.

According to one estimate, no fewer than 2,320,000 new jobs will have to be created during the next five years if the administration is to make good on President Park’s election promise to raise the employment rate. This should be nothing short of a Herculean task, which would demand enormous concessions from both labor and management, not to mention the administration’s meticulous policy coordination with all parties involved.

However, labor, management and government representatives sitting on the Economic and Social Development Commission successfully negotiated an agreement on the broad outline of measures to be taken. Its announcement last week was welcome news, in particular, to those fresh out of school who have been the hardest hit by a long-lasting economic downturn.

The agreement was made possible by the willingness to trade concessions ― a rare commodity in adversarial labor-management relations. One such case involved a new pay system under which the wage, after peaking at a certain age of the worker, would then decline until retirement.

Employers had demanded the new pay system be adopted, with the retirement age set to be raised to 60 in the years ahead. But the Federation of Korean Trade Unions had opposed it on the grounds that it would mean a pay cut.

But the national umbrella labor group turned around and agreed to the peak wage system when large corporations offered to put an increasing number of young people on their payrolls each year. It also made a concession and agreed to raise labor productivity at their own expense when the Korea Employers Federation offered to cut long working hours.

Still, labor, management and government have a long way to go until all the measures are implemented. The members of the presidential advisory panel, formerly called the Tripartite Commission, will undoubtedly find the devil in the details.

Moreover, the Park administration looks unwarrantedly ambitious when it promises to create 2,380,000 jobs by renewing its commitment to raising the employment rate to 70 percent. Job creation is easier said than done, as witnessed during the past five years.

Park’s immediate predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, promised to provide 3 million new jobs during his five-year term in office. But the jobs that were actually created numbered 1,248,000 ― fewer than 250,000 each year.

A large portion of new job openings will undoubtedly have to come from the job-sharing programs the Park administration is planning to introduce. Among the programs are the reduction of average annual hours actually worked per worker from the current 2,090 to 1,900 and the employment of regular workers doing part-time jobs.