South Korea's finance minister on Tuesday stressed the need to boost job creation and encourage more women to join economic activities.

"Globally, how to boost employment rates has posed a challenge (to policymakers), warranting attention," Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok told reporters before holding a meeting with Bank of Korea (BOK) Gov. Kim Choong-soo. "It is critical to encourage more women to participate in economic activities."
His remarks on job creation are in line with the government's push to raise the country's overall employment rate to 70 percent during the five-year term of President Park Geun-hye. The rate currently stands at 59.8 percent.

In a bid to boost job growth, Park earlier underlined the importance of "decent" hourly or part-time jobs. But the proposal drew criticism that such efforts could just end up generating more unstable irregular jobs.

In an apparent move to dismiss the concerns, Hyun noted that creating hourly jobs are the "focus" of employment polices in many advanced countries, citing his recent visit to Paris to attend meetings of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

His meeting with the top central banker, the first of its kind since his inauguration in March, drew keen interest as the government and the central bank have been at odds over their assessment of economic conditions and the necessity for a rate cut.

The government has pushed for economic stimulus measures, including drawing up an extra budget of 17.3 trillion won (US$15.3 billion), effectively putting pressure on the BOK to slash the key interest rate.

The BOK had resisted the government call for an interest rate cut until last month when it finally lowered the rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.5 percent.

Emerging from the roughly hourlong talks, Hyun told reporters that he and Kim discussed such issues as job creation, the current economic situation and the roles that his ministry and the central bank have to play. He added that both will continue to hold similar meetings once a month.

"We need to take a close look at how things are unfolding given significant changes in international economic circumstances. What I am saying is that we, the government and the central bank, should closely monitor whether the stimulus measures already put in place are working properly and if there is anything else that needs to be looked into in the process," he added.

BOK Gov. Kim also worried that external market situations could move in an "unexpected" way, saying that it is necessary to create an environment where they can respond with caution and flexibility. (Yonhap News)